


No Fixed Point

by bendingsignpost



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Asexual Character, Asexual Sherlock, Being Lost, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Hypnotism, Language Barrier, M/M, Mistaken Identity, One-Sided Relationship, Prompt Fic, Reality Bending, Separations, technically character death (in that John dies in one universe) but he's fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-19 07:29:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingsignpost/pseuds/bendingsignpost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The AU of AU's: First, he is shot in Afghanistan (again). Second, he wakes on a boat. Third is pain, fourth is normalcy, fifth is agony and sixth is confusion. By the tenth, he's lost hope.</p><p>(Original prompt: "ECM!John gets hurt again, and ends up with a few more lives. By overwriting Stranger at the Gate!John and Behavioral Modification!John. " Thus, <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/15213">Watches 'Verse</a> with <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/334595/chapters/540799">Behavioural Modification</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/334825/chapters/541229">Stranger at the Gate</a>, spoilers for everything. Prompted and filled <a href="http://bendingsignpost.livejournal.com/15315.html?thread=985299#t985299">here on livejournal</a>. NOT an official continuation of any of these 'verses.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Red

  
They're pinned down and a part of John's mind is laughing manically. It's this mad little laugh is more than a Bit Not Good, but this can't be happening. It's his last day. This is his last active day in Afghanistan for the next two (eight) years, and now it happens.  _Now_ it happens.

Matthews is trying, is holding onto him and trying to apply pressure to the wound, to where the bullet ricocheted into John's body, but the angle is wrong. Across the artery, not straight across, no, oh God. Femoral arteries go wrong quickly.

His head falls back against the wall. The strap of his helmet digs into his chin. Matthews is saying something, but John is too busy dying to pay attention. "I'm going to Chelmsford," he tries to explain. "Essex."

He looks down at his leg, Matthews' red hands. God, his leg. It hurts. It hurts wet.

He tries to look up, away. He can't seem to. The last he sees of Afghanistan is his own bleeding leg.

 

 

He wakes up in stinking humidity and there are feet in his face. It should be alarming, but even with the bare minimum of light, he recognizes the feet. What he doesn't understand is why the bed is rocking, why the walls are groaning, and why candlelight is flickering through the boards above his head. He's on a ship. An old ship.

Sitting up, dropping the sheet from his very much clothed chest, John checks his wrists. Nothing. He doesn't even recognize the make of his shirt, let alone the shirt. But he still recognizes the mop of hair at the other end of the bunk.

"Sherlock?"

The legs at his side jerk and Sherlock sits up with a cough. He supports himself on one arm, the other hand fisted before his face. He startles again at the touch of John's hand on his knee. John quickly removes it.

Sherlock asks him something, a once-sharp syllable dulled by sleep and a worn throat.

"Where are we?" John asks. He can't quite make out Sherlock's expression in the limited light, but the resulting silence is a question in itself.

"Sorry, um." Another reality, he knows this is another reality. They're here together, travelling together in bizarre conditions, so obviously John is meant to know where they are. "Strange dreams. I'd like the... reassurance, I suppose."

Sherlock replies. It's his voice, somewhere beneath the roughness, half-hidden in strange syllables. John hears wariness, confusion. Concern.

"You have no idea what I'm saying, do you?" Because the reverse certainly applies.

Sherlock takes a breath, coughs with it. "John," he begins, or says something that certainly sounds like John's name. As he speaks, he doesn't gesture. Instead, he maintains eye contact and begins to edge forward, pulling his legs beneath himself. There are questions here, statements, and John might be able to learn something if only he could see. At last, Sherlock points. John looks, sees a small table set into the wall. Dim shapes sit upon it.

"Those?"

"Sa," Sherlock confirms.

John reaches for them, has to move a bit on the bunk to get them. The board the thin mattress rests on hits the side of the wall with his movements. It's like a wooden hammock. The items on the tiny table are a candle and a matchbox. John takes the obvious course of action.

He shakes out the match and holds the lit candle between them.

Sherlock is... young. Devastatingly young. Conscious effort puts John's guess at twenty-six, but his face is even younger than that. His eyes are open, a far cry from the one-way mirror they'll become.

Then there's the clothing. John's fairly certain he's wearing everything but a coat and boots, and Sherlock even has the coat on. Strange, it being so hot in here, humid and muggy. John feels filthy and not in the way being in bed with Sherlock typically brings about.

The walls creak, the waves murmur, and every breath Sherlock takes turns into a wheeze.

"Are you all right?" they ask each other in unison. Not that John understands Sherlock's words, but he knows that tone, that face. They've asked the same thing, and Sherlock recognises it.

"Are you all right?" Sherlock repeats, his voice carefully shifting around the English words. A certain distracted observer in John's lap takes an interest in this. The accent is as incredible as it is bizarre.

What had Sherlock said before?

"Sa," John confirms.

Sherlock frowns at him, the way he only does when bewildered by idiocy.

"Sa?" he tries again. Does that not mean yes?

Sherlock begins to frown the way he only does when John is bleeding.

"I'm all right," John says, nodding. "Are you all right?"

"I'm all right," Sherlock repeats. The words are broken cups, the meaning once within them drained away. Sherlock continues speaking, slow and low. John nods along, keeps nodding along as Sherlock gestures to John's head and his own throat. The gestures increase, repeat, and Sherlock begins to stress the significant details. John listens as sentence structure breaks down, but he can't make any sense out of any of this beyond there something being wrong with John's head, similar to Sherlock's throat. Sherlock's tense, immensely so, and it begins to sink in that John may have overwritten someone— _has_ overwritten someone who—will be sorely missed.

Then there's a word John does know.

"Moriarty?" John repeats. It comes out sharp, comes with a recoil, and Sherlock's hand grips John’s knee through the blanket.

Sherlock says something involving Moriarty's name and a confident tone. There's a bite in it that turns his young face so much older, that much more familiar.

"Dead?" John asks. "Moriarty, dead?" He supplies a one-handed gesture, the other keeping the candle holder steady on his other knee.

Sherlock nods. He counters with a gesture of his own, two fingers walking across the flat of his other hand before flicking the walker off. There's something immensely satisfying in it. "Moriarty dead."

John grins and, a bit hesitantly, Sherlock grins back. His hand returns to John's knee.

Good to have one piece of good news.

Sherlock resumes speaking, clearly trying to explain something to John. Something involving his own chest. The illness there? He reaches for John after, a cautious gesture that doesn't land a touch. Something about John's head. Believing John confused or crazy, possibly the victim of a stroke. Whatever the John of this world had spoken, it was a language he'd had in common with this Sherlock.

Eventually, John interrupts him, squeezing his hand. Sherlock falls silent immediately.

"I'm sorry," John says. "I just don't know what you're saying."

The gears in Sherlock's mind visibly turn. God, his eyes are so open.

"I'm," Sherlock says. He lifts his chin, clearly indicating himself. "You are," he says, squeezing John's knee.

"Right." Vocabulary required.

"All-" Sherlock coughs. "All right?"

John blinks. "Your memory is amazing."

Though Sherlock clearly recognizes this as a compliment, it makes him squirm rather than preen. "All right?" Sherlock insists.

"All right." John nods. Do nods translate? He makes sure to smile and nods again. "Yes. Good."

It's surprisingly short work to lay the foundations for yes or no questions. The challenge comes in asking them.

By the time Sherlock's voice wears out, they make little progress. Sherlock seems to think John's lost his ability to speak normally because of Moriarty. Or not Moriarty, but something or someone related to Moriarty. John's fairly sure this is a failure of translation—Sherlock can't actually think that.

What is clear is that Sherlock thinks John needs reassuring. Every inch of him is overly careful, not muffled or muted but silenced. When John lets him hold his hand, Sherlock's grip is tense but not hard. John feels as if his hand is loosely held by stone.

Sherlock is saying something about Moriarty and Moriarty speaking when the coughing grows alarming and his already hoarse words fail. John sets the candle on the small table and reaches for him. Fingers on the throat, checking for swollen glands. Sherlock twitches under his hands.

"Not good," John tells him, indicating the cough, the back of his curled fingers against Sherlock's clammy skin.

"Not good. Bad?"

"Bad." John nods.

Sherlock rolls his eyes.

"You already knew that," John acknowledges. "Now shush.  _Shush_." He puts his finger before his lips, then against Sherlock's as the man is about to protest.

Sherlock freezes immediately.

"Can I...?" John gestures, tapping his own ear, pointing to Sherlock's chest.

Looking away, face turned toward shadow, Sherlock seems caught in indecision. Why, John has no idea. Well, maybe he does. If a friend of his had suddenly gone mad and lost his language, John doubts he would be willing to accept help, too bent on giving it.

When Sherlock doesn't protest, John unbuttons his coat and shirt. He keeps his eyes on his hands rather than Sherlock's face. One thing at a time. Language, this Sherlock's health, anything but the fact that John just died. No more Afghanistan, never again  _don't think about it_.

Ear against Sherlock's chest, John takes a deep breath. "Breathe," he says, then demonstrates again.

Sherlock tries.

John shifts his position, hunched where he sits. "Again. Breathe again."

Sherlock tries.

"Not good," John murmurs.

"Bad," Sherlock agrees.

"Shush."

"No." Petulant, Sherlock through and through.

John doesn't mean to grin. Sherlock has that effect on him. He sobers quickly all the same. God, where is this? If Sherlock is younger, is John younger as well? This isn't a world that's different merely because John caused something to change. The boat and the language are proof enough of that.

"I'm going to take care of you," John tells him. The one thing worth focusing on. He tries to imagine waking up here without Sherlock—any Sherlock—present and that's not a train of thought he wants to follow. He buttons Sherlock back up, and it's too tender, it's much too needful the way John touches him. Insanity and stability at once, that's Sherlock all over.

"I'm going to take care of you," Sherlock rasps in reply. It almost sounds as if he knows what he's saying.

They settle back down and John's habits betray him. They've been sitting up too long. This body doesn't remember which way it was lying down before. It isn't until he registers the extreme amount of tension under his arm that it occurs to him this was a bad idea. That, possibly, this is not a Sherlock to be spooned.

"Sorry. Sorry, I'll...."

Sherlock's hand tightens around his wrist, securing John's arm around his waist.

"...I'll stay?"

"Stay?" A quiet question for clarity.

"Stay," John repeats, not moving. "Go," he adds, sitting up.

Sherlock rolls onto his back. The candlelight turns him into a child.  _Stay_ , he mouths.

"I'll stay," John says.

He brushes Sherlock's hair back from his forehead. Frowns. Touches it again. It feels different. Softer, finer. It makes him think of chinchillas, oddly.

Sherlock's breathing worsens, ragged, wheezing. His eyes screw shut. His mouth twists.

John pulls his hand away. "Bad?"

Sherlock shakes his head. His mouth is proud, his closed eyes pained.

"Stop or go?"

 _Stay_ , Sherlock mouths again, and John has clearly stumbled into something bigger than he understands.

"Yes, I'll stay." Until he falls asleep. He might want to do that soon, if only for some processing time. God, where will he wake up next? Is this the replacement for Afghanistan? He can't possibly be stuck here.

A light touch on his shirt, not even a tug. Sherlock's hand is so tentative. He's peering at John, honestly peering with one eye open and the other shut tight.

"Christ," John swears. He lies down, propping himself up on one arm, and resumes petting Sherlock's hair. "It's all right. It's all right. You're going to be okay." The other John, the one this Sherlock clearly thought he was dealing with....

The less said about him, the better.

"We were having one hell of a fight, weren't we?" John asks softly. Sherlock's features twist and relax in turns, terror and euphoria rising and falling as they will. John ought to stop, tries to stop, but the only compromise between heartbreak and guilt is to rest his hand there, fingers curled in soft black. "God, I'm sorry. I am."

Slowly, almost as if he thinks he's being sneaky about it, Sherlock slips his arm around John's back. Play along? Pull away?

John lets himself lie down, lets himself be pulled down. He'll pay for this later. He knows he'll pay for this later. For now, he tucks his face against Sherlock's neck and tries to forget how it felt to die.

 

 

He jerks awake in Chelmsford. He rolls over, arms around his pillow, face buried, and the less said about the following twenty minutes, the better.

Ten minutes after that, dehydrated and shaking a bit, he takes a shower, Army quick. He sits down on the toilet and tries to stop thinking. Deep breaths.

He makes himself breakfast. A far greater challenge, he makes himself eat it. He's sitting at the table when Marta rings the doorbell. He should move, should get that. Go to work. He'll never be a soldier again, but he's still a surgeon here.

He looks at his hands. They're steady.

Marta rings the bell again.

Deep breath.

John gets up and goes to work.

 

 

By the end of the day, John is exhausted beyond belief. He already misses the calm of the operating room, the focus. By himself, no distractions can hold.

He goes to bed as soon as he can.

 

 

This time when he wakes, Sherlock is curled up against his back. Sherlock, in his bedroom, at Baker Street.

"Oh thank God."

He rolls over immediately, waking Sherlock and not caring. Sherlock holds him reflexively. His grip is tight and concerned, and John can't blame him. Too long holding back, his grief breaks out. Self-mourning feels strange.

"Sorry," he mumbles against Sherlock's chest. He thinks he cried on Sherlock. No, he did, right against his skin, and even a normal person would notice that.

Sherlock tugs him close, holds him secure. He's a creature of tension, a cage of sharp bone around John, as if John might vanish.

Given time to breathe, time to calm, John pulls his damp cheek from Sherlock's chest. Sherlock doesn't let him ease back very far.

"Afghanistan?" Sherlock asks.

"Yeah." He coughs, clears his throat. "Yeah."

They settle next to each other, Sherlock's eyes on his face, Sherlock's hand on his side. John closes his eyes.

Sherlock's hand begins to glide up and down his ribcage, smooth strokes of warmth that keep John from dropping off to sleep. It's nice. Mortifying, of course, but nice.

"I was shot," John tells him eventually.

The warm touch moves to his shoulder, settles there.

"In the leg," he adds.

"Psychosomatic."

John doesn't mean to, but he laughs. A little giggle that turns into a silent chuckle, his forehead pressed against Sherlock's shoulder. He shakes his head a bit, knowing how the scrape of his hair there annoys Sherlock. Sherlock doesn't respond, but John starts giggling again anyway.

This is probably a bit not good.

Sherlock grows tense against him. It's impossible to miss.

"Sorry," John mumbles. "I'm just a bit...."

There is a very large pause.

"Off," Sherlock supplies.

"Mm."

This pause is better. More relaxed. Almost. Sherlock is still thinking too much.

"I died," John explains. "From the leg wound. It was... upsetting."

Sherlock resumes the stroking, now over John's back. The rhythm is very deliberate, as if Sherlock has worked out the correct rate for the optimum comfort-effort ratio.

"It was quick, though," he adds. "The confusing part was after. I woke up on a boat. An old one. It stank in there. And—this is the odd bit, this is going to be a problem—there was another you there who spoke... I don't know, actually. I have no idea what language that was, but he was catching on to English fairly quickly." John leaves out the part about waking up in bed with him. Sherlock's already jealous enough of his counterpart in Digital London without throwing in the man on the ship.

"He was sick," he continues. "And young. Really open. It was a bit weird. I mean, it was all a bit weird. More than a bit. I think the language barrier scared him."

"I'd dislike that," Sherlock allows, the motions of his hand steady. The touch is pleasantly absentminded, his mind too much occupied to be full of pity. Too many thoughts in his head. Not enough evidence yet, needs more facts to make theories.

"He was quick enough on the uptake for being sick." John thinks a bit more. "It was humid in there. Stunk to high heaven, too. Suppose that wasn't much of a help. I didn't get much of a look around. It was the middle of the night. Or dark in there, I suppose. No lights, only a candle. I went back to sleep as soon as I could. After that, it was Chelmsford, then here.

"But it's strange. That was the most different it's ever been. No electricity, you at least a decade younger—those can't be my fault. The differences have always been my fault before."

Once John finishes, Sherlock kisses his forehead. There is a brief shuffling of their bodies, the sort that happens when John doesn't want to be comforted and Sherlock doesn't want to be comforted either, but they're both bent on comforting each other. Oddly grudging, this, for naked cuddling. Well, almost naked. Sherlock has his pants on. Must have wandered off in the night.

Sherlock sets his cheek against John's brow. It's nice.

"I'll make you tea," Sherlock tells him.

"Will you really?"

"No," Sherlock deadpans. "I was lying for no discernible reason."

"Oh. Pity."

"Mm." One last kiss to John's forehead and Sherlock pulls away, gets up. He plucks his dressing gown from the bedpost and shakes it into place on his way out the door.

A few moments later, John hears the kitchen tap running, filling up their electric kettle. He grins into the pillow, then climbs out of bed himself.

Tea in the morning means he needs the toilet first. Gives everything time to cool, lets the taste of toothpaste fade; efficient all around. He takes his piss, cock in hand, same as any other morning.

Except, not quite.

Something is off.

He looks around the loo, wondering what in the world Sherlock has done to the loo that is subtle enough to avoid immediate detection. Things have been moved around a bit. Not much, but moved. An experiment in itself, or a result of Sherlock cleaning up after himself? It's an infrequent but plausible option.

Frowning a bit, he gives himself two shakes and draws his bathrobe closed. Down go the seat and the lid—bit ridiculous, how well Derek has housetrained him—and John washes his hands. For once, he doesn't take any care over the leather band about his wrist.

Because his watch isn't there.

John blinks a bit at his arm.

He could have sworn he.... Did he take it off? Put it down. He can't imagine he did, but he must have. The sink counter is clear of all timepieces.

He backtracks to Sherlock's bedroom. His watch is on the floor, next to his socks and trousers. John puts all of them on.

"John?"

Controlling his voice, he calls back, "Coming!"

When he reaches the kitchen, Sherlock's latest experiment is gone. Which doesn't have to mean anything. Sherlock's experiments tend to come and go without warning.

"Tea," Sherlock says. He points at the cup on the table.

John looks. "So it is."

"Drink."

"You know," John muses, heart pounding in his ears, "caffeine isn't good for bad dreams."

Sherlock rolls his eyes. "This far before noon, I'd say you're safe."

John should laugh now. No, not laugh. Grin a little? Maybe just smile? Be appreciative. Do something. Anything.

"Actually," John says.

Sherlock's full focus hits him like the high beams of a Humvee.

"I think I'll take a nap."

Sherlock says nothing.

"Sorry," John adds. "You did say you weren't making tea."

"What's wrong?"

"I'm tired, that's all."

Sherlock leans back against the washing machine, arms folded. He nearly looks like he's hugging himself. "It's more than that. And you're a terrible liar, John. You need to stop doing that."

"I need some sleep," John corrects. "I just need some sleep."

"And you'll tell me after?" It's less concern in Sherlock's eyes than the unending need to know, but they do look similar when Sherlock focuses on him like this.

John nods. Maybe he just won't wake up here again. God, he can hope.

"Are you eating breakfast today?" he's sure to ask before he goes. Normalcy, try for that.

"I'm having tea, apparently."

John's smile is purely reflexive. It lasts until Sherlock moves forward, clearly intending to kiss him. John ducks his head, trying to keep up the grin, and it works well enough that Sherlock sets his chin atop John's bowed skull. John leans forward a bit, headbutting Sherlock lightly in the throat, and Sherlock gives him a bit of a shove to the right shoulder.

"Unless you'd rather me with you?" Sherlock asks.

"I'd rather you eat breakfast," John counters, and when Sherlock glares at him, John manages to escape into the hallway unkissed.

Almost immediately: "John?"

John keeps going, climbing the stairs more quickly than perhaps necessary.

Concerned now, blatantly so: "John?"

At the top of the stairs, John opens the door to his bedroom and finds himself looking into a study. A pair of desks, practically an office, and a sofa between bookshelves. He turns around and finds Sherlock on the stairs behind him, at the base of the stairs, hand outstretched toward the railing without touching.

"John?" Sherlock asks again, a third time.

"I'd thought I'd left something up here." God, the lie sounds terrible. That wouldn't convince his sister stone drunk.

"You're not all right." Sherlock climbs up the stairs after him, corners him against the open doorway to a strange room. He peers into John's eyes as if to drill out hidden truths like buried diamonds. "What is it?"

John closes his eyes. "I just need to sleep."

"What's wrong?" Hands on John's shoulders now, the grip strong.

The instinct to pull back doesn't so much as rear its head. This is Sherlock, his body knows. This body knows this Sherlock even more than his mind does. His shoulders feel the force of Sherlock's palms, his fingers, and they report fear and helplessness.

His legs step forward. His head ducks itself, his face tucks itself against Sherlock's collarbone. His hands know Sherlock's sides, the curve of ribs, and Sherlock holds him immediately, arms close, hands tight.

"I'm tired," John tells the neck of a non-stranger. "I need some sleep, and maybe that will sort my head out right."

"You're afraid it won't," Sherlock informs him. "Not merely concerned—you are legitimately frightened. Why?"

"Are you trying to make me explain an irrational fear?"

A pause, Sherlock's cheek warm against his temple. "An irrational request, I know."

John reaches behind himself, takes Sherlock's hands from his back, and opens the cage of those long arms. He holds onto one hand, the right, and guides Sherlock into the study. John lies down on the sofa that isn't even where his bed ought to be. It's too small for him, just barely, and he curls on it only slightly. Sherlock sits with him, his weight pressing the cushions before John's stomach. John rolls forward, just a little leaning roll, and this helps him hide his face in his arms. Sherlock keeps a hand on his side.

"Thank you," John mumbles. Because if Sherlock knows he's giving John a gift, he's much less likely to take it back.

"Of course."

It's a close thing, being able to fall asleep. Too frightened, too eager. Analogue will be tomorrow, time for talking, theorizing, mourning his last life as a soldier. Thinking of it with another man rubbing soothing circles into his skin is guilt-inducing, but he manages, so slowly, to sleep.

 

 

Derek's singing in the shower again. On key, very nice, well done, but the sound of it fires off immediate resentment. Sod this, he needs his other London.

He goes back to sleep.

 

 

The coughing wakes him. It's the pained sound as much as the motion of it, Sherlock's body just shy of convulsing next to him. There's something resigned about it, so incredibly tired. Concern immediately pushes back the irritation. How long has the man been down here in the reeking darkness?

Sitting up, John sees the candle, sees how little it's burned. Not very long asleep, then. He can feel it.

"John," Sherlock rasps when John moves.

"Why are our names the same?" John wonders. "Come here, budge up." He moves so he's leaning against the wall a bit, pulls Sherlock toward him. "This will help, maybe. Better than doing nothing, c'mon."

Sherlock complies, sluggish but surprisingly obedient. The blind trust of the exhausted. How much of his earlier energy had been out of adrenaline from John's change of language?

A good deal of it, John concludes as Sherlock lies back against him. The movement is hesitant, uncertain. John frames him with his legs and lets that ridiculously long torso recline against his own. Once Sherlock's head is against his shoulder, John sets his hand on Sherlock's stomach. "Breathe," he says.

Sherlock does. It sounds a bit better. Not much.

"Fluids. Now would be an excellent time for tea."

Sherlock turns his face, the top of his head against John's jaw.

"This isn't where I should be, you know,” John tells him. “I was going home today."

Gradually, John's back begins to ache. Gradually, Sherlock turns limp in his arms.

"Hope we're near land, for your sake. Get you some fresh air." He listens to Sherlock breathe. He holds still as Sherlock sneaks his hands around John's. "This is very strange."

"Are you all right?" Sherlock asks. The words are low and accented, reminding John somewhat of Marta doing an impression of her father.

"I'm all right," John says. With his free hand, he brushes Sherlock's hair away from his mouth. "Not where I thought I'd be, but I'm all right. Are you all right?"

Sherlock practically melts into him.

"Sherlock?"

"Stay."

"I'll stay." John pets his hair a bit more. Whatever makes the man relax. "We have the same names here, but not the same languages. That's a bit weird. Maybe your name is common here and I'm the unusual one."

Sherlock mumbles some sort of response. John has no idea what it means. After, they're both silent for a long while. He thinks Sherlock might doze.

"I'm meant to be home today," John whispers to him. Soothing sounds, pet his head. No pity, everything is normal, just give the man lots of sentence structure to decode and vocabulary to absorb. "I was going to wake up in my bed at Baker Street. Well, his bed. We don’t do it so often, you know. Sharing a bed doesn't work out too well between us. He's too disruptive. I'll talk to him tomorrow about you. Bet he'll be confused too." He grins a little. "Nice surprise for him, in a way. Not that I'm not, y'know, having a great time wondering if you're about to die and all—you're not, by the way. But he likes surprises. My him, not yesterday's him. God, that's going to end terribly if I wake up there again. I've never had a one-off reality before, but that might be the one I'd pick. That one's too close. How's that for insanity: I'd rather this stinking boat over Baker Street."

Eventually, the sounds of the ship include those of human movement. Footsteps, some speech.

John nearly gets up before he realises Sherlock is asleep. He stays. He tries to sleep himself, but his back aches far too much. His stomach begins to growl. It's unlikely that Sherlock can feel the vibration through all their layers of clothing, but he wakes all the same.

"Breakfast?" John asks.

Sherlock shifts a bit, cranes his neck to look up at John.

"Breakfast," John repeats, miming taking a bite of something. "Food? We should eat food. Eat food. Eat breakfast."

Sherlock blinks at him slowly, then closes his eyes.

John pokes him.

"John eat food, eat breakfast," Sherlock mumbles, not budging.

"Sherlock and John," John corrects.

Sherlock doesn't respond.

"Sherlock and John eat food, eat breakfast."

Again, no response.

"Are you asleep again?"

"John? Shush."

John laughs. Doesn't mean to, does anyway. Gentle about it, he cuffs Sherlock upside the head. Sherlock laughs too, but his eyes are large and wondering, as if John has somehow become a magical creature.

Given time, John manages to get out of the bunk and attempt to stand in their closet of a cabin. It takes a bit more prodding and a good amount of being glared at, but he manages to get Sherlock to come with him as well. John has no idea where the galley is and needs Sherlock to do the talking.

Talking, not eating. Not only does Sherlock make no attempt to eat, no one seems to expect it of him either. It's worrying. Very worrying. Almost as worrying as being given a strip of salted pork, more salt than pork, and a shoddy mug of beer. For breakfast. John tries to choke the pork down without the beer, but it nearly shrivels his tongue off. On second thought, it's a good idea Sherlock's had, not eating.

After, they go up onto the deck and Sherlock brings them to a place beneath the stairs to the upper deck. It's a good place for sitting, for staring at what ought to be a historical re-enactment, and John lets himself doze off in the sunlight, shoulder to shoulder with a foreign version of his best friend.

 

 

He wakes up in Chelmsford, swears, and sets his alarm to go off again in five minutes.

 

 

He wakes up on a sofa in a study that should be his bedroom. Keeping his eyes closed, steadfastly ignoring the gaze burning into the side of his face, John forces himself unconscious yet again.

 

 

Derek is  _still_ singing.

 

 

His back hurts, everything smells like salt and body odour, and there's a hand in his none-too-clean hair. He jerks away, the motion involuntary, and wastes precious time trying to apologize before he can get to another nap.

 

 

Sod this. Sod this. He'll just be late for work. He rolls over with determination, wide awake, and wastes even more time trying to relax enough to sleep. In the end, he goes to work, scaring Marta once again, and uses his lunch break as nap time.

 

 

He's back on the sofa.

"John?"

"Could I have that tea now?" he asks, no,  _begs_. A moment alone, that's all he needs, just a moment alone to try again.

Hesitation, Sherlock's hand on his side.

"All right," Sherlock allows.

John manages to drop off again while he's gone.

 

 

 

"John, I'm done with the shower!" Derek calls through the door.

"Fuck you!" And: "Oh, God, sorry! Sorry, I didn't mean that! Sleeping in, just- Try and keep it down, will you?"

 

 

 

 

He wakes up on the boat. Ship. Whatever it is. He's Army, not Navy.

Sherlock's head has wound up in his lap, somehow. John's leaning against a crate and Sherlock has his back set against a barrel where he lies on the deck, curled foetal. He has his collar turned up. They're out of the way, but it still feels extremely conspicuous. And it is. Sailors stare at them.

John stares back until they look away.

...Hang on.

Female sailors. More than one, there are at least three.

They're not back in time, then. It's a re-enactment of some sort, has to be.

But then, why isn't there any medical intervention for Sherlock?

Nothing makes sense.

He sits there, thinking about that.

He looks down at the youthful face pressed against his thigh. He thinks about that too.

How many cycles was that?

He thinks he might be starting the fourth go-around, the fourth since Afghanistan. Here first, then two naps on the deck. It's his fourth time here, three everywhere else.

Ten times switching reality, ten times waking somewhere that isn't Analogue London. Ten times in a row.

Breathing is difficult once he realizes that.

This has never happened before.

This  _can't_ happen.

He goes back to looking at the sailors. He looks at the sails and the build of the ship and he realises he's been fisting his hand in Sherlock's jacket only once the man stirs. The jarringly young man. God, look at him.

"John, are you all right?"

"Yes," John lies, but he lies very poorly.

Sherlock is watching for body language as it is. There's no chance of Sherlock accepting the lie, not for an instant, and Sherlock sits up to look at him with those devastatingly open eyes. They turn his familiar features into a stranger's face, a stranger who adores John, who fears for him, who loves him more than he wants to show.

John looks away.

Sherlock nearly reaches for him. Ultimately, he refrains.

"Sherlock and John stay?" Sherlock asks. "John stay?" Options, his body language says.

"John stay," he replies.

Sherlock looks at him intently for a moment, then nods. Carefully, he stands, hands on barrels securing him upright. He says something that obviously means, "I'll be back soon."

John nods. "I'll stay," he says again, patting the floor beside him.

Sherlock nods. "You'll stay."

John's not sure if these are huge strides in communication or the echoes of a head hitting itself against a metaphorical wall. He sits there by himself for a while. It's no good. He needs something to think about, something that won't drive him around the bend.

After a few of the male sailors do it, John pisses off the side of the ship as well. The fastenings of his trousers are strange. It's all buttons. Wooden buttons. When he looks at his clothing in more detail, it's all handmade. Old, too. If this is some sort of re-enactment, it's an extremely long-term, particularly mental one.

When John gets thirsty, the only thing around is yet more beer. This is insane. He manages to nod along to the few people who engage him in conversation, but the trial of it quickly has him back up on deck.

He goes back to where Sherlock left him and sits down. Too much beer for so little food. At this point, the beer is becoming food.

Before he can take advantage of the alcohol and drop off to sleep yet again, Sherlock reappears. His colour looks better, much better. Some of the hunger in him is gone. John knows what it looks like from back in London, at his flat. It's important to know. He can recognize the little moments where Sherlock will steal his food if John leaves it near him. He'd begin piling his plate just a little higher, taking another biscuit or two.

As this Sherlock sits down next to him, John wrinkles his nose. "What's that smell?"

"What?" Sherlock asks.

John touches his own nose, touches Sherlock's coat. "Smell."

"Smell," Sherlock confirms, touching his own nose. He gives another word, one that might mean the same thing or might be what he now smells like. John repeats it all the same, and Sherlock smiles at him for it. John forgets what it was immediately after.

Sherlock adds some sort of a gesture, one that reminds John of Monty Python and rabbits with nasty little pointy teeth. Two fingers making a hooking motion in front of his mouth.

Some sort of animal, then? Animals in the hold?

"Okay," John says with a shrug.

Sherlock continues to look at him intently.

John raises his eyebrows.

Sherlock asks him something that John entirely fails to understand. Then he coughs a bit more. It doesn't sound quite as bad as before.

They sit together, Sherlock prodding ever more vocabulary out of John. It's strange and oddly fascinating. They attract a few strange looks, but that's the least of John's worries. This eats up enough time that John might not go out of his mind before going to sleep tonight.

He manages to choke down lunch, spends the afternoon trying to get their basic situation out of Sherlock, and fails to get Sherlock to eat dinner. He's fairly certain Sherlock calls him an idiot at that point. Sherlock definitely becomes more concerned from then on, which is saying something. Or, possibly, it's the beer. This body has a surprising alcohol tolerance, but it's still left him wobbling a bit.

As the sun sets and the air turns cold, Sherlock takes his hand and leads him back to their closet of a cabin. It's a surprisingly sweet form of condescension, but that's Sherlock all over.

Unfortunately, it doesn't make climbing into bed with him any less awkward. John's precedent of turning around has apparently established the expectation that they'll sleep in the same direction now. When John tenses, feelings are obviously hurt, and not like Sherlock's usual tantrums.

Sherlock shies away from him. He becomes smaller. It shouldn't be possible, Sherlock Holmes being so young and guilty.

Rather than climb in the bunk after John, Sherlock relegates himself to the small chair at the tiny table.

What ensues is the same argument John has had with another man countless times. It's a stupid argument, a pointless argument. Having Sherlock in bed with him is only going to wake John up more. If John keeps being conscious in these new realities for short periods of time, he'll never be awake long enough to give these realities a lower priority in his dimensional shuffling. He won't get back to Analogue London. Keeping this Sherlock out of his bed is the right thing to do.

Excepting the fact that this Sherlock is ill and there is only one bed.

John sighs. Gets up.

He hauls Sherlock from the chair and is pleasantly surprised by his own strength. Sherlock makes a squawking sound.

John shucks his coat, bundles it up, and sets it behind Sherlock on the bunk. He pulls at Sherlock's coat as well. Really, it's much too warm and humid down here to be wearing any of that.

Hesitant about it, Sherlock complies. They get a decent pile behind Sherlock for him to lean back against.

"Stay," John instructs. "Breathe."

Sherlock takes a deep breath, demonstrating his understanding, and nearly sets himself off into another coughing fit.

"Port?" John asks, mostly to remind him. They discussed it on deck. Well, mostly.

"Two days," Sherlock confirms.

John holds up two fingers.

"Two."

"You're an amazingly fast learner. Can't say it surprises me."

They go through numbers again, mostly for John's sake. While Sherlock has English numbers up to, well, probably just before the thousands—John hasn't taught him the word for "thousand", but Sherlock has taken and run with the structure for everything else—John can't remember all the new words.

After long enough of this, John reciting numbers over and over, Sherlock begins to drop off. Christ, he must be sick, sleeping twice in a row. He looks exhausted.

Once John's sure Sherlock is asleep, he blows out the candle, puts his head down on the table, and lets the ship rock him to sleep.

 

 

He wakes up in the staff room, the one with the bunks for the night-shift surgeons. He blinks at the bunk above him for a bit, then turns on the lights. Electric lights. Not something he's missed until recently.

He doesn't want to, but he gets up. Quick lunch, then it's time to prep for surgery. Nothing too out of the ordinary. God, he's glad he's not facing the emergency room today. That's going to be terrible on Friday.

Clarity comes in the operating room. It always does. Step by step by step by step. Here is the incision, here is the procedure, and everything he asks for is set into his hands.

He completes the operation with zero complications.

Driving home with Marta riding shotgun, he's not unhappy. Worried as all hell, yes, but for the moment, not unhappy. Small victories are worth holding onto with both hands.

But that night, he wonders. No more Afghanistan because he died. That's obvious enough. Why the trouble with Analogue London? His only analogue now, he supposes.

It's not like they were actually linked, his analogue lives. The watch choice was entirely arbitrary. The loss of one shouldn't mean the loss of the other. It makes as little sense as foreign languages on a 17th century boat.

Lying awake that night, staring at the ceiling until the small hours of the morning, he wonders if he died in his sleep. Maybe Sherlock blew up the flat. Might have been Moriarty. Could have been a heart attack—unlikely, but possible.

If Moriarty blew up the flat again, John hopes Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson got out all right. And the neighbours.

But no, John dozed off in Sherlock's bed again. Any sort of explosion that killed John would have taken Sherlock too. That's not okay.

Something else, then.

John wonders.

"I'll get back," he whispers to his ceiling. He's written as much in his daylist, but saying it aloud doesn't hurt. It feels more like a promise.

He lies there, thinking of what he'll do when he gets back. Wondering if Sherlock will have noticed. Or if Sherlock will simply be pleasantly surprised when John pounces on him, snogging him breathless. He has a nice bit of a wank, planning out what he'll do to the man. Too many options, but they're all so good to consider.

It's possibly the tensest, least satisfying wank of his life, but it's the sleepy boost he needs to drop off once again.

 

 

"John."

There's a knock. Knuckle rap. But not Mrs. Hudson.

John rubs at his eyes and sits up on the sofa.

Sherlock—this Sherlock—doesn't sit with him. Instead, Sherlock stands in front of him and hands him the tea.

"Thank you," John says. He looks down at the tea.

Sherlock studies him.

Though Sherlock can only see the top of his head, John closes his eyes anyway.

"Your body language is different."

"Sorry?" John looks up.

Sherlock's eyebrows pull together, his eyes burning into John's face.

John waits.

"You are," Sherlock realises.

"I'm what?"

"Sorry," Sherlock supplies. "You're guilty. It isn't your fault, but you accept the blame for it."

"Could you not do that please?"

"You want to apologise, but you're not sure how."

"No, really, could you not do that for five minutes?"

"No." Sherlock glares down at him. It's ridiculous how tall the man is. "I've waited all morning."

John laughs.

He shouldn't. God, he really shouldn't.

But he laughs anyway. Cannot help himself. He laughs and laughs and Sherlock takes the mug out of John's hands before John spills it.

Sherlock sets the mug on the floor.

Sherlock catches John's shoulders between his hands.

Sherlock looks absolutely terrified.

John's not entirely sure how, but somehow this leads to Sherlock on the sofa as well, John bundled up in long arms, his face against a crisp purple shirt. Once secured, he shakes a bit.

"I want to do a thought exercise," John says after a moment.

Sherlock lets out a breath. "All right." His hand secures the back of John's head, as if convinced John's brain will fall out any second now.

"You know that theory of multiple realities? Everything happening somewhere and all that? Parallel dimensions, comic book stuff."

Sherlock scoffs. It's nice to hear. "I was present for 'the Geek Interpreter', John."

"Right, yeah." So that had happened here too. "Suppose you knew someone who travelled through different realities. Realities that were the same before one distinct point in time, that is. And you knew that this someone might end up depending on another version of yourself. What would you tell them that could make other you trust them?"

For once in the life of Sherlock Holmes, the man has absolutely no response.

John waits for it anyway.

Eventually, John pushes himself up and looks at another man's flatmate. "I'm being serious."

"That's what worries me."

A flicker of a smile there, a flicker of an answering one from Sherlock.

"Really, though," John prompts. "What sort of code word would you give him?"

Sherlock stares down at him, through him.

"A memory," John continues. "Something that only you were present for, something significant that you've never told anyone."

Sherlock's gaze refocuses on John's eyes.

"Something like that time when you were eleven, staying at your grandmother's in France during August. You went out into the garden, laid down in the shade with a book, and when you stretched out, you were on page one hundred fifteen. You stretched out, felt something prick your elbow, and when you looked, you'd forced a bee to sting you by accident. It was trying to crawl out of your arm, but it was stuck. You stared at it until it died because you knew it was going to die anyway. It was your first bee sting."

Sherlock's mouth does not fall open. His eyes, however, are very wide.

"Once it died," John continues, "you pulled it out with your fingers. You tried to be careful, but it still ended up a bit crushed. That afternoon, you went home and checked the windows for dead bees until you found a few you could really look at. Then you picked the lock to your grandfather's study and took the magnifying glass out. It was the second time you'd ever been in there. Then you sat upstairs by the half-window near the attic. You dissected one with a pair of tweezers. It was near sunset, so the colours were a bit tinted. You took the magnifying glass back to your room but left the bees. When you went back in the morning, someone had cleaned them off the windowsill."

By now, Sherlock has let go of him entirely.

Finished, John sits quietly. He gives a flick of a smile, sorry and sad and as encouraging as he can be.

"...What are you talking about?" Sherlock asks, voice soft. "What are you—How do you...."

John folds his hands and sets them over his knees. "I did say."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Sorry," John says. "Bit of a default state."

"No," Sherlock says, as if that will do anything. "That's not an explanation for anything. Comic book stuff, John. Oh, sorry.  _Graphic novels_." Complete with the sarcastic hand wave. "Don't be so stupid. What's actually-"

"Was I right?" John challenges. "I was, wasn't I?"

"That's not-"

"I am." No question to it. Whatever made the boat world so different hasn't touched this reality. This one is still close, still familiar. "Three bees, wasn't it? On the windowsill?"

" _Stop it_."

"How can I know that?"

"I'm thinking," Sherlock snaps.

"I can wait," John assures him. It's clearly been a bit much. There's no good way of breaking the news, but that doesn't stop the guilt from rising.

Sherlock stands up. He crosses to the other side of the study, to the desk which is clearly his. It's smaller of the pair, but taller, angled more prominently toward the sofa. Clients must sit on the sofa.

Sherlock sets his hands on the desk. He taps and fidgets.

John waits.

"Tell me what else you're claiming." Sherlock doesn't look over his shoulder, merely looks at the wall to his right, over John's desk. His profile is stern, focused. John must only be a figure in his periphery. "Tell me the entirety of it, and if you cannot prove it, I'm taking you to hospital. No fever, no sign of stroke, no head wound—I don't have the equipment here to find what's wrong with you."

John chooses to ignore that last part. "It's a bit of a long story, but there's a chance it's not settled yet."

Sherlock practically growls at him. "Just tell me the story."

"I'm saying there's a chance things might still go back to normal."

"Then you're saying there are many more chances things will not 'go back' to normal," Sherlock spits, wheeling around, hostile as any wounded creature.

John holds up his hands, unmoved.

"Go on." Impatient gestures combine poorly with disdainful words but suit the urgent strain of his voice. "The rest of this little prank of yours, tell me."

"Prank? A minute ago, you were ruling out stroke."

"I theorize as the facts arrive—you know this. Now tell me!" Sherlock yells.

John doesn't flinch. He flexes his hands instead. Sherlock and insecurity lead to shouting. John knows this.

"The bee memory makes sense as a code word because it's a central room in your mind palace," John says. "You even call it a palace after your grandmum's house. You always thought of it that way when you were a kid, but you never told anyone after the time you mentioned it to Mycroft and he laughed at you. You were three."

Sherlock turns himself into a statue. His chest rises and falls, his face is a mask of intensity, but the man himself no longer moves.

"You've never told any of this to anyone. It's not something you felt comfortable saying aloud either. Too personal. Which is why it's effective.

"The point is," John says, "the only way I could have learned any of this is from you. That is literally the only way. You are the only person who knows any of that, and if I didn't learn this from you, then I learned this from someone else who is also you. Well. Ish. Pretty close.

"Because multiple realities mean multiple versions of the same people, again and again and again. There's a point where the realities start to drift apart, the splitting point, and before this, they're basically the same reality. So any information from before that point is valid in all realities coming from that split. That's what this is. That's how I know about the bees."

There is a very long pause wherein Sherlock leans back against the desk. He sets his hands together, fingertips pointing at John.

"John," he says.

"Yes."

"I'm taking you to hospital."

"That's, yeah, that's what I'd thought."

 

 

John is taken to hospital.

 

 

John is released from hospital.

 

 

They have a very late second lunch. Rather, John has a second lunch to join that sandwich from the hospital canteen. Sherlock stares at him in a fit of exacerbated terror.

"Can we talk about this rationally now?" John asks. "I need you to stay calm."

"I am calm," says the man with a white knuckle grip on his mobile.

John reaches out and sets his hand over Sherlock's.

Sherlock looks down at their hands. "That's different. Why is that different?"

"Hospital bracelet?" John suggests. It gets him a scowl.

"It makes no sense."

"Sherlock," John says as gently as he can, "it's not going to make sense for a while."

"Because you're a John Watson from another reality and not actually the man I know."

"Pretty much, yeah."

"I don't believe you."

John eats his pasty.

Sherlock watches him.

"Am I lying?" John asks.

"You believe you're telling the truth."

"So that would be no, not lying, then."

"Perhaps, but it can't be true."

"Why not?"

"Because you're clearly delusional." For such a condescending statement, it's an oddly affectionate, Sherlock through and through.

John chews his pasty.

"When you pretended to be normal at the hospital, that's when it sounded like lying," Sherlock continues. "Ergo, delusional."

"Or," John prompts.

"There isn't an 'or'."

"Of course there's an 'or'. It's just so shit an 'or' you don't want to look at it." John crosses his arms on the table and leans forward. "Because if what I say is true, it's not just that I've gone a bit mad. Mad is fine, we do mad just fine, the two of us. If I'm right, then I'm someone else, and you can't fix that." He holds Sherlock's gaze for as long as he can without his eyes watering, then returns to his meal.

"The switch is only mental," Sherlock prompts eventually.

John nods, nearly finished. He swallows. "Only mental. What's in one reality stays in one reality, except for my consciousness. That switches when I sleep."

"So this morning."

"I've had about a week today alone—you're going to have to be more specific."

Sherlock treats him to a nice long stare, a particular staple of his facial expressions today.

"When you first woke up this morning," Sherlock clarifies. "You said you'd been shot in Afghanistan. In the leg."

John nods.

"You said you'd died."

"Yeah. Usually I wake up in Essex from that. No, sorry, I mean. That's what happened the first time. I was shot, I woke up in Essex. Shot in the shoulder. I was back at the hospital I used to work at in Chelmsford. That was the strange one. The other three continued from the split point, but Chelmsford had split off from my life a while back. I'd never joined the army there."

As John speaks, Sherlock begins, for the first time today, to listen. "And the other three?"

"Two being shot, one staying normal. Where I was shot, I moved back to London. In one of those, I moved in with you. The life where I wasn't shot, I stayed in Afghanistan. Almost finished my tour before that leg wound." It feels like such a failure. He can't call it a real failure—getting shot like that wasn't his fault, there was nothing he could have done—but, Christ, it feels like one.

"You said you'd woken up on a boat. One with a different language where I'm in my twenties."

"Yeah, that one, I have no idea," John admits. "Half of it's a period re-enactment, the rest of it makes no sense."

"I thought nothing was going to make sense."

John rolls his eyes. "Not like that. Look, if something is strange enough to break my standards of 'normal'? That is damn strange, Sherlock."

"Are you finished?"

"Not close."

"Not explaining," Sherlock corrects. "Your meal."

"Oh, right. Yeah."

"Good. Let's go."

"Mind walking?" John asks. "I know I won't be able to see if anything is blatantly different, but I want to give it a try. Baker Street still get blown up by Moriarty here?"

"Mm."

"And he's still alive here."

"Mm, yes." A sharp look. "And elsewhere?"

John laughs a little, not a happy sound. " Let's just say... it's amazing what you can do when you know what's going to happen. After having the bomb strapped on, I was a bit peeved. Second time was the charm, though. Probably confused the shit out of him—I wasn't on his radar, that go around."

Holding the restaurant door open, Sherlock stops, truly stops and looks at him.

As they walk home, the distance between them is greater than when they arrived, the unconscious gap of strangers.


	2. Green

Sherlock closes the door behind them, shrugs out of his coat, and demands, "Tell me everything from the beginning."  
  
John does. While John does, he makes tea, because this is one of those talks where tea must be present regardless of whether anyone drinks it. He's explained the watch system and the basic rules of his condition by the time it's steeped. By the time it's cool enough to drink, he's explained the degree of drift between his lives.  
  
Sherlock's expression turns odd at the first sip, a moment of confusion John doesn't understand.  
  
"Sorry, something wrong?" Had John somehow influenced his madman's tea drinking habits differently here?  
  
Sherlock's frown only deepens. He shakes his head, gestures for John to continue.  
  
John does. Chelmsford, Afghanistan, Grant Road, Baker Street.  
  
"Specifics, John. You lost consciousness at the pool—how?"  
  
"I tackled him into the water when he shot the bomb," John explains. "Landed on my shoulder—I'd already mucked it up fighting the Golem—and I passed out."  
  
"I shot the bomb?"  
  
"No, he shot the bomb," John corrects. "Going by your tone, you didn't shoot the bomb."  
  
Sherlock shakes his head. "I was going to."  
  
"What happened instead? Mycroft's rescue team jump in earlier?"  
  
"No. Moriarty's phone rang."  
  
John's eyebrows attempt to rise off his head. "And?"  
  
"And then he decided to leave," Sherlock supplies, furrowed brow speaking volumes. Clearly, John isn't the only one mystified by this. "Annoyingly anti-climatic."  
  
"I nearly drowned," John counters. "Then I spent the next five days being very unhappy."  
  
"When you say 'unhappy', you mean murderous."  
  
"I did shoot the Golem, yes," John admits.  
  
Sherlock gives him a look over his mug.  
  
"To be fair, it seemed like a good idea at the time."  
  
Sherlock laughs at that, a silent puff of air before he angles his face away.  
  
John grins back, has to grin back. If he doesn't have Sherlock here, doesn't have Sherlock on his side, he doesn't know what he'll have to do. It's already a safe guess that he'll be sleeping on the sofa.  
  
"Anyway," John says.  
  
"Mm. So the differences between our realities originate at or before early April."  
  
John nods. "Sounds about right."  
  
"What happened between the day we met and the pool?" Sherlock prompts. "The most significant thing you can think of."  
  
"I realized I was bi," John says without hesitation. It's still strange to say, but it fits his mouth now, an oddity that is nevertheless true.  
  
Sherlock blinks at him. "Then our realities diverged a significant time ago."  
  
"What, really? How significant?"  
  
"Rough estimate of twenty-five years."  
  
"...fuck. Sorry, I don't mean—Well, no. Fuck. So much for being close to my usual life."  
  
"But still closer than in the sixth reality." Less a correction and more prompting, but everything sounds like a correction from Sherlock.  
  
"That one is pretty far off from everything," John confirms. "I've checked everywhere, and there's no sign of modern technology. At all."  
  
Sherlock gestures for him to continue. John does. He describes the boat in as much detail as possible, the food, the drink. He describes the sailors, the clothing he'd woken in, the bunk, the stench and humidity and noise below decks. He relays the parts of the language that he remembers, and this is what brings out the notebooks and laptops.  
  
"And you're certain that's the basic numbering system?"  
  
"Counting to ten is probably the easiest thing to teach," John points out. "I'm sure."  
  
They keep searching.  
  
"You're sure that's the pronunciation?"  
  
"I'm sure."  
  
"Because the International Phonetic Alphabet warps from accents, John."  
  
"Look, that's how he said it."  
  
They keep searching.  
  
"It might not be a modern language," Sherlock says.  
  
"Yeah, the wooden buttons and lack of plumbing were a hint," John agrees with a sigh. He stands up from his hunch, too long spent peering over Sherlock's shoulder at the table. He sits down across from him.  
  
Sherlock keeps searching. He looks just like himself, the way he always does. It feels oddly normal. Comfortable, familiar. Then John thinks about lying in bed this calendar morning, wrapped up in this man, and simply feels awkward. He thinks about following this man to bed—not taking him to bed, just sleeping—and something inside him shies away in apprehension.  
  
God, this is strange.  
  
John shakes his head and continues writing down everything he can think of. He draws out a daylist since his last day in Afghanistan. Eventually, he realizes Sherlock is reading it upside down.  
  
"You're missing one of your Londons," Sherlock observes.  
  
There's an unspoken question there, but John doesn't answer it.  
  
"Do you have a four-reality limit?"  
  
"This didn't come with a book of instructions, Sherlock," John snaps.  
  
"Meaning you have no idea."  
  
"Yes. That's what it means." And he hates having it shoved in his face.  
  
"So you can't tell me whether the proper owner of that body is dead or simply relocated," Sherlock continues, his voice uniformly level.  
  
John hesitates. "I honestly couldn't say."  
  
"And the permanence of this condition?"  
  
"I've, um." He glances down at his lap, has to force his eyes back to Sherlock's face. "I've been like this since October. So, for me, that's three years. Nothing besides being shot has ever made my realities change."  
  
"And trauma causes you to wake in Chelmsford," Sherlock continues, still devoid of reaction.  
  
"Typically, yes. But not anymore."  
  
Sherlock is quiet for a very long time.  
  
"Would you—" Sherlock begins. Stops. He might be thinking better of saying it. Sherlock Holmes might be thinking better of saying something. "I realize there's a dearth of technology in the boat reality, but should you locate a firearm, would you consider shooting yourself?"  
  
"No," John replies.  
  
"No?" Sherlock asks, the question glaringly casual.  
  
"No," John repeats. "I don't know if it's the injury or the injury in Afghanistan that causes the splitting. Not to mention I'd be killing an innocent man." If he hasn't already. Three realities now, three that aren't part of his own life. Those three John Watsons: erased or evicted? He might never know. "It would destroy any chance of that John Watson getting home either."  
  
"I didn't ask you to shoot yourself fatally."  
  
"Oh, no, because gunshot wounds in pre-industrial societies aren't prone to infection," John replies. "That wouldn't be a horrifying way to go at all."  
  
"If you don't take that risk, you'll require a translator for the rest of that life," Sherlock counters.  
  
"So when we can understand each other enough for me to explain and that Sherlock Holmes asks me to kill myself here, you want me to say yes to that too?"  
  
"Obviously not."  
  
"And what makes you different?" John asks. "Because I woke up in his bed too. What makes you different?"  
  
"I asked first," Sherlock answers simply.  
  
"Sorry," John says. "Sorry, that's really not good enough. Look, I can't do anything about whatever's happened to their minds, but I can keep their bodies safe for them."  
  
Sherlock looks down into his mug. No tea left now, not for some time, but Sherlock has carried the mug with him. "You have a gun at Grant Road," he says. "You shot the Golem, you must have—"  
  
"No," John says, shaking his head, shaking just the once but as hard as he can. "No, no, bad. Not good, Sherlock."  
  
"You'd live."  
  
"That's the last body I have that's actually mine," John says. "No."  
  
"Not necessarily true. It could potentially provide you with realities splintering from that life," Sherlock counters.  
  
"Where I would have still shot myself. Which hurts, in case you didn't know that," John tells him. "I prefer not being shot. If you can imagine. I'm not shooting myself."  
  
"Not even a graze?"  
  
" _No_."  
  
Sherlock looks down at his mug. "Fine."  
  
"Look, I'm not going to stop trying to think of a way out of this," John says. "I do mean that. Not exactly happy myself, thanks. He's probably trying to find a way back here too. Something could crop up that doesn't involve self-harm."  
  
"Probably."  
  
"Probably crop up, yes—"  
  
"No, you said 'probably trying to find a way back'," Sherlock interrupts. "Why 'probably' for him when you're definitely?"  
  
Because this Sherlock's flatmate might be dead. Overwritten. Gone.  
  
"Because," John says, "it's possible my showing up split this reality and he went off on that side without noticing the difference. I don't know. I cannot know, Sherlock."  
  
By Sherlock's absolute stillness, it's clear Sherlock hadn't considered this.  
  
John waits.  
  
When he's done waiting, he stands up, picks up both of their mugs and returns to the kitchen. Time for more tea.  
  
"Coffee," Sherlock calls.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Coffee."  
  
Huh. All right.  
  
By the time that's done, John thinks the choice of beverage was a distraction tactic. That, or it's growing late.  
  
"Do I have work tomorrow?" John asks.  
  
Sherlock grunts at his computer.  
  
"Sherlock."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Do I have work tomorrow?"  
  
"Yes, ten o'clock."  
  
"Okay."  
  
There is a very long pause.  
  
"You're not sure where you work," Sherlock surmises.  
  
"No, actually."  
  
There is another very long pause.  
  
John clears his throat. "Any chance you're actually going to tell me?"  
  
"Oh, please, as if it's not obvious."  
  
"Sherlock."  
  
Sherlock's shoulders are smug. The back of his head. John has no idea how he does that.  
  
Obnoxious, but still better than a sulk, John decides. John does a bit of his own investigating and discovers where his counterpart's schedule is kept upstairs. Nicely in the desk, very much where he would have put it himself. It's probably the only convenient aspect of all of this.  
  
After a bit of thought, he fetches spare sheets for the sofa from the linen closet and finds some pyjamas too. When he returns to Sherlock's side in the sitting room, he's treated to about an hour of Guess the Ship Type, the results inconclusive. By the end, he's yawning.  
  
"I'm going to sleep upstairs," John says. "When I wake up—whenever I wake up—it's going to be four days later for me, all right? So I'll have something to report back in about."  
  
"You don't have a bed upstairs here," Sherlock answers without looking at him. He's getting very good at that.  
  
"No, but I'm less likely to be woken before morning if I'm up there."  
  
"Take the bed. I won't be sleeping."  
  
"All right," John says. When he goes up to the sofa instead, Sherlock doesn't notice.  
  
  
  
John wakes up, takes a shower, and attempts to apologize to Derek via newspaper sharing. Typically a quiet procedure involving John asking "Could I look at this?" before reading every section Derek hands to him, it fails terribly when John can't actually sit still.  
  
He's back in his own body.  
  
His only own body.  
  
Christ, that's disturbing.  
  
Not that it's his body. That's the one thing that's comforting. That he's spending three fourths of his time in other people's bodies now, that's the most disturbing thing he's ever done.  
  
"John?"  
  
"Huh, sorry, what?" No, stop, calm down. "Sorry, you were saying?"  
  
Eyebrows raised, Derek pauses before he says, "Never mind."  
  
It's a very jumpy morning. John's glad when Derek leaves for work. Unable to remember, John checks his schedule and finds he's not working today.  
  
He takes a walk instead.  
  
He takes a very long walk.  
  
He's halfway across the city before he realises that, no, he cannot simply show up at 221B Baker Street asking if his Londons simply happened to fuse into this one. As if Sherlock would simply say, "Oh, that's where you went", and that would be the end of it. Except then John would have to wait until the rent ran out with Derek, give the man a spot of warning, and then come up and resume life as usual. As close to it as it ever came. And they'd laugh a bit for being so nervous.  
  
Be a bit strange, trying to juggle Sherlock against Derek and the rugby lads. John doesn't think he'd mind. Probably lead to less rugby, but he's forty now, mentally at least. He doesn't need that much rugby.  
  
He finds a spot to sit and not do stupid things before he actually shows up to look another Sherlock in the eye. Christ, this is going to be a long day.  
  
  
  
"PTSD acting up again," John says that night. "I'm not—I'm not going to do anything stupid. I just... I'm a bit off. Sorry."  
  
Derek looks at him over the screen of his laptop and nods. This is what Derek had assumed. This is what Derek always assumes.  
  
"Thanks," John adds. "For putting up with me."  
  
"I sing in the shower and you still don't kill me," Derek replies. "Think we're even."  
  
John tries to grin a bit. They both do, really. It's terribly polite and makes John long to be a better friend. Friends aren't this terribly polite.  
  
"I'm just plotting against you," John says. "Biding my time."  
  
"Shame about that Hippocratic Oath," Derek answers, not batting an eye.  
  
John laughs. It's a good laugh, doesn't hurt his throat at all. "'Night."  
  
"'Night, John."  
  
  
  
"Fuck-!"  
  
His  _back_ , what has he done to his  _back_?  
  
He sits up from his hunch with a hiss and more than a few choice words. It takes him a moment, but he remembers: sleeping at the tiny table rather than the bunk. Some strange instinct makes him stare at his right wrist, at the lack of a timepiece there. No way of knowing how long he's been asleep. It feels like a while.  
  
"...John...?"  
  
John looks to where Sherlock is but can't see him in the dark. "Shush," he says gently.  
  
Sherlock moves, audibly shifting back. His hand slaps against the bunk rather than simply patting it, a lethargic movement of gravity meant to summon.  
  
Stretching buys him time to decide. The pain in his back tells him he's been asleep for hours, but it might be exaggerating. His stomach tells him it might be time for food soon, or it might be time to rethink the rations on this ship. He's not sure what his bladder can tell him.  
  
A softer pat now, a double-tap to the thin mattress, and John nearly obeys from habit alone. He sits instead, perched on the edge of the bunk.  
  
"You're memorizing everything I say, aren't you?" John whispers. He tries to pitch his voice beneath the rocking of the ship but nevertheless has a sense of interrupting the night. "I hope so. Well, whenever you sort English out, you should know that I did try to tell you from the start. I'm not your John Watson. I don't belong here. I don't know what you two were doing or where you were going. I am trying to fix things, but I don't know how. I just don't. I'm sorry. I don't know if your John is dead or safe or coming back or not. I'm sorry."  
  
As John speaks, Sherlock's hand steals onto his. John pulls his hand away to scratch at his stubble. His hand feels strange against his face, his palm and fingers rougher.  
  
"If I explain everything now, will you record it? No deleting. I probably shouldn't use computer terms for you, should I? No, bad idea. But I need you to listen. Sherlock, do you understand. I—me—I need—I  _need_ , Sherlock—you, listen." Gestures work poorly in the dark.  
  
"What?" Sherlock asks. He coughs after that low rasp. Then: "Again."  
  
John leans down. "You. Listen." He finds Sherlock's shoulder in the dark, touches his ear. "Listen." Touch his forehead. "Remember. I speak. You listen." Touching his ear. "You remember." Touching his forehead.  
  
Sherlock catches his hand. Brings it back to his ear. "I listen." Forehead. "I remember."  
  
"Good, yes. That's good."  
  
"You speak." Sherlock's fingers manage to find John's mouth in the dark. They rest against his chapped lips, incredibly soft compared to John's hands here.  
  
John turns his face away, but Sherlock's hand merely shifts to his neck, a smooth brush against his rough cheek leading it there. John catches him by the wrist. "Stop that. You need to stop that."  
  
Sherlock responds in his own language, something like a low, challenging swear. It would sound sexy if he weren't wheezing.  
  
"Shush. Listen."  
  
Once again, John starts from the beginning and tells him everything. When someone hits the wall of the cabin adjacent, John leans lower, tries to speak more quietly, and this somehow escalates into John lying on his side, nose pressed into soft curls as he whispers into Sherlock's ear. Sherlock murmurs each word after John does, a continuous stream of sound that hopefully means memorization. Maybe it's helping the man learn. True to form these days, John has no idea. He talks as long as he has something worth saying, longer than he did even for that other London - now he has that other London to talk about.  
  
By the time he's done, the morning movement about the ship has audibly begun. Realizing he could explain his flatmate's attempts to train his subconscious to music or he could find some breakfast, John concludes with "and that's the basic problem."  
  
"...basic problem," Sherlock finishes a second later. A slight pause. "I remember. You speak, I remember."  
  
"Good." John gets up, which means pulling away. God, he's exhausted already.  
  
This time, John gets Sherlock to follow him to the galley with ease. Sherlock sits next to him, making conversation on John's behalf, and is oddly ignored when breakfast is distributed. When John opens his mouth to protest, he hears, "No. Shush, John," and a hand covers his under the table.  
  
John pulls his hand away. He tries to eat breakfast without elbowing anyone or feeling seasick, but both are difficult this morning.  
  
An uncomfortable moment arises when someone addresses him, a man he doesn't recognize but who seems to recognize him. John smiles back, a quick flicker of an expression, but it's clearly not enough. Sherlock leans in and murmurs, "John, speak," before giving a short statement that John repeats as best he can. John elbows Sherlock away as if his new accent is the other man's fault, and everyone laughs a little, expressions strained. John has no idea what any of that was about.  
  
After that, they try to avoid further contact. John does, at least, and he begins to increasingly notice the odd looks it earns him. He tries to imagine how this must look, him going silent and trailing after Sherlock. This must look strange.  
  
They hole up by themselves yet again, up on deck but out of the spray, and John's progress learning Sherlock's language continues at the barest crawl. It worries Sherlock, obviously so. Still, John is trying. He may not be a genius, but he's not an unintelligent man. It's simply too much to memorize all at once. He can't do what Sherlock can do.  
  
They take breaks. Sherlock quizzes him after each one. Each time, John feels more inept.  
  
Indecision begins to show on Sherlock's face. What over, John can't tell. He tries and fails to ask what's wrong.  
  
"I speak," Sherlock says. Then, clearly meaning something else, he repeats, "I  _speak_?"  
  
John looks at him blankly.  
  
Sherlock sighs. "I speak, you listen, you no remember. I  _speak_ , you listen, you remember."  
  
John blinks at him. "I don't remember what you speak."  
  
"You don't remember what I speak, yes," Sherlock agrees. "You remember what I  _speak_."  
  
"I... All right? I don't know what you're trying to say."  
  
"All right?" Sherlock asks. His eyebrows are raised, his eyes wide.  
  
John purses his lips, thinks it over. "All right," he says. He tries to sound confident, but that doesn't stop Sherlock from looking uncertain.  
  
Biting his lip, Sherlock stands and reaches for John's hand. Hand holding must be more acceptable here for men. It's the only explanation John has for it. Maybe more casual? He doesn't know. John simply takes Sherlock's hand and lets himself be pulled up.  
  
"Come with me," Sherlock tells him.  
  
John nods.  
  
Sherlock leads him down into the ship, farther into the stink and noise, until John realizes that there really is livestock being transported on this ship. Cows, all of them looking more than a touch uneasy until Sherlock enters the hold. Then they all quiet down. Mute and adoring, they stare at Sherlock as one animal.  
  
"That's... creepy," John murmurs to himself.  
  
The sailor keeping watch over the animals immediately looks uncomfortable. After a short conversation with Sherlock—very short—the two of them are left alone in there.  
  
Sherlock gestures for John to sit on a crate. John does. Sherlock stands in front of him, leaning down. He enunciates clearly and carefully, but John can only recognize a fifth of the words he uses.  
  
"I'm sorry. I still don't understand."  
  
Sherlock nods, resigned. He closes his eyes and sets one hand on either side of John's face. Sitting down, John's uncertain how he'll be spun in circles this time. He closes his eyes as well.  
  
" ** _John. I speak, you listen, you remember._** "  
  
"Yes," John agrees instantly. Of course. It's the only thing that makes sense.  
  
Sherlock begins to speak in word-pairs, terms John already knows. He moves on to the terms John has taught him, providing new words, groups of syllables that John has been repeatedly told and has repeatedly forgotten. John listens this time. John remembers this time. Sherlock speaks and John remembers. John likes it when Sherlock speaks, likes the way the sounds catch in his ears, his mind.  
  
He feels very relaxed. Not calm, but soothed. The way Sherlock cradles John's head between his hands, this is very nice. Sherlock's voice is very nice. Warm. John coaxes his eyes to open, temping himself with the sight of Sherlock's face. He pays attention all the while. Sherlock looks very concerned, very focused, and John wants to reassure him. Later, when Sherlock isn't speaking and John isn't learning to remember. Then, John will reassure him. He's not sure how. He'll think of something. He'll remember very well, and then Sherlock will be reassured. It's very important.  
  
Looking nearly stricken, Sherlock shifts his hands against John's face. He closes John's eyes with a gentle touch, pad of each thumb brushing down an eyelid. John eases closer, needs closer if he can't see. He wraps his arms around Sherlock's waist, sets his ear against the thin chest, and holds on. Sherlock staggers in the hold, sways with the rocking of the ship, but John has him. It's very important that John have him.  
  
The words stop.  
  
The words have stopped a long time ago.  
  
John's sense of absolute safety begins to sport holes. His back aches. His mind twists into confusion. John shakes his head against Sherlock's shirt, against his buttons, and pulls the man tighter against him. Two hands stroke through his hair, alternating right and left. John would rather Sherlock keep talking.  
  
"You listen. You understand?"  
  
Sherlock's voice is less now, flat and stale. It doesn't sound wrong—it could never sound wrong—but it doesn't sound right.  
  
Sherlock pushes him back, pushes him away. His hands hold fast to John's shoulders, so it's still all right. "You understand me?" Sherlock repeats. "Do you understand me?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"John, look. Look me. Look me eyes here."  
  
John looks up. The blanket of warmth that is listening and remembering is ripped away, torn by the sight of Sherlock's face. "You okay?" John asks.  
  
Sherlock nods, clearly lying. "You okay?"  
  
"I'm okay. All right." And another word more, a word John gives back to him. He knows he learned it, but he's not sure when.  
  
This seems to reassure Sherlock, but not by much.  
  
"You speak, I hear, I remember," John mumbles, reciting, and it's a moment before he realizes he didn't just say that in English. Wait, what? He shakes his head, shakes it hard. What just happened?  
  
"You remember more, you speak more," Sherlock agrees, his hands steady on John's shoulders. He sways with the ship, riding its rocking, and John just wants to look at him. He wants to look at Sherlock and feel warm and taken care of.  
  
Except John doesn't need that.  
  
He doesn't want that.  
  
"My head..." He touches his temples, but there's no pain to relieve, no pressure to release. There's nothing there. It's an itch he'll only worsen by scratching, a scab that won't heal if he picks at it, and the doctor in him says not to touch, to ignore it. The soldier in him seeks to obey.  
  
But some other part, some deeper part that has nothing to do with roles or training, that part is screaming bloody murder.  
  
"What did you do to me?" The words come out weakly. He sounds drugged. "What did you give me?"  
  
"You're all right," Sherlock tells him, certain and seductively gentle. John wants to pull the man between his legs and press his face back against that chest. It would be lovely. Everything would be good, and safe, and perfectly fine, and what the fuck is he thinking?  
  
John pulls away, tears away, slapping Sherlock's hands off his shoulders. He stands and stumbles, slipping in cow shit and straw, but he catches himself without touching the floor.  
  
"John," Sherlock calls him, a soft warning, and John's attention snaps to him, simply snaps. It takes conscious effort to look anywhere else, to look instead at the cows, and the cows are all staring at Sherlock. All of them. Quiet and serene, every last animal in the hold has turned to look at Sherlock.  
  
"You hypnotised me. Us. Everything in here, you just—Fuck,  _what did you do?_ "  
  
Sherlock tries to respond, possibly to yell in turn, and it sends him into a fit of coughing. Immediately, the animals in the room come awake, shifting, making noise, breaking the lulling silence left in the wake of Sherlock's voice.  
  
John darts out the door, slams it shut between them, and avoids a few sailors who look much less than pleased.  
  
"You all right?" one asks in the language John's just learned. Christ.  
  
"I'm fine. I'm fine."  
  
"What's the—" strange word, curse? "—done?"  
  
Already edging past, just keep going. "Sherlock?"  
  
"Holmes, yeah. Watson!" the sailor calls after him.  
  
"It's fine!" he yells back as he runs up the stairs. God, that's making too much noise. Everyone can hear. No, not everyone, or everyone would have been hypnotised, except hypnosis doesn't even work that way. Nothing works this way.  
  
There's no way off a ship at sea, no way but to drown, but John needs a moment alone, John needs a moment to think, so he ignores the voice of reason telling him to find a crowd. Instead, he makes a beeline back to his cabin, their cabin, and the instant he's inside, he shucks his belt and uses that to bind the door shut. The latch has no lock. He shoves the small chair against the door as well. The table is built into the wall and he doesn't force that particular issue.  
  
He yanks off his shoes, climbs into bed and tries to calm down enough to sleep. There's noise from outside, more casual speech than any sign of alarm, but John can understand it now. Snatches, bits, and the more he listens, the more that falls into place. Something inside his head has been taken out and rearranged, and now information is entering it so very easily.  
  
He tries to breathe.  
  
He tries to will himself unconscious.  
  
It very much fails to work.  
  
Before he can drop off, there's a knock at the door. A gentle knock, hesitant. John's recognised the footsteps. He knows who it is. It's not as if anyone else talks to him on this ship. It's not as if anyone else truly can.  
  
John remains curled on the bed. He tries to keep his eyes closed, tries to drop off to sleep right now, but knowing Sherlock is on the other side of the door is unreasonably frightening.  
  
This reality is different. This reality is clearly very different, and trusting Sherlock by virtue of him being Sherlock Holmes may not be a terribly good idea.  
  
Listening to the man on the other side of the door simply stand there, John forces himself to think about that. To actually, honestly think about that.  
  
Eventually, he hears Sherlock walk away.  
  
He breathes easier for it.  
  
  
  
He twitches awake in Chelmsford. He sits up and rubs at his eyes and stares at the wall opposite. He'd just been wondering when it would be time for lunch on the ship.  
  
He gets up, goes to his desk, and begins to write down everything he can think of, spelling phonetically. The degree to which his vocabulary has expanded is incredible, and that only serves to unnerve him further.  
  
Hypnosis doesn't work that way. It simply doesn't.  
  
He takes a shower, a more thorough one than he needs. He's filthy on the ship, but his body there is accustomed to it. Remembering it while clean is what makes him feel dirty.  
  
His mind wanders too much this morning and he keeps tightly to his routine. Filling out his daylist is a calming ritual. Then breakfast, then the car, then Marta and coffee. She starts talking about some new programme that was on telly last night and John lets himself hum and nod along.  
  
The operating room is a comfort today. It's order and control, and it's not until John's washing up afterward that he realizes: he's forgotten to worry over getting home. He's distracted, too distracted.  
  
Washing his hands, he closes his eyes and thinks of Sherlock, his Sherlock, his madman. He thinks of eating risotto on the floor, thinks of impatient cries of "hurry up!" in bed. He thinks about Mendelssohn on the violin and Sherlock's insistence that if trauma could send him to Chelmsford, other stimulus might be able to perform a similar function. He thinks until his heart is aching and his priorities are correct.  
  
This takes approximately twenty seconds.  
  
And then it  _hurts_.  
  
Not like being shot, not like bleeding out, but it hurts all the same. A desperate, stupid pain.  
  
John finishes up his shift and goes home. Marta picks up on his mood and fills the silence with the comfortable sounds of familiar complaints. He takes her side, grateful to do it, to be unimportant in his own head for just a moment.  
  
That night, lying awake, he remembers the man on the boat. Running mental fingers over the memory, he thinks of the way that Sherlock had begun to stress his words before taking John down into the hold. Speak and  _speak_. Listen and no remember, listen and remember.  
  
He thinks Sherlock may have been operating under the assumption of informed consent.  
  
Christ.  
  
  
  
He wakes to knocking, the rapping of knuckles against an open door.  
  
"Hm?" John turns his head and blearily looks at the blue-striped sheets beneath his cheek. He startles awake, fully awake, adrenaline flooding his system, and then the sheets pull across the sofa. Just a sofa, not his bed.  
  
"Do you usually wake up like this?" Sherlock drawls from the doorway, shoulder against the jamb. His shirt is rumpled, the same as it was here-yesterday, and there's a mug in his hand, the one Sherlock prefers for his coffee.  
  
"Don't have much of a 'usually' left these days," John replies, shifting to sit rather than crouch over the sofa on hands and knees like a tense dog. "Any coffee left downstairs?"  
  
"No." Sherlock sips the remains at him.  
  
"Lovely."  
  
A spasm crosses Sherlock's face, a car crash of emotion where amusement impacts grief.  
  
"Sorry," John says.  
  
Leaning against the door frame, Sherlock keeps his eyes on his mug. His silence has weight, has heft, and it falls with grace.  
  
John gets off the sofa and folds the sheet. His spine gives a few good popping noises as he does. The sheets go to the arm of the sofa, the pillow atop them. He stretches a little and absently does the first of his shoulder exercises.  
  
"Uncanny valley," Sherlock murmurs.  
  
"Yeah," John says, then looks at him. "Could be worse, though."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Mm. The Digital London one, his eyes just slid off me the first time we met. No recognition. Bit disconcerting, a man with your face not knowing who I was," John readily admits.  
  
"Meaning it's possible he's in a reality where the same applies," Sherlock says. John makes the pronoun jump just fine: Sherlock means his own John. They always mean their own detective or blogger when there's an unspecified "he", John is beginning to discover.  
  
"Maybe, maybe not," John says.  
  
"Oh?"  
  
Envying Sherlock his mug, his object to hold and deflect with and bury his face in, John shrugs a little. "I told you how things were before I was shot again, didn't I? Right-wrist realities all have you dead from the cabbie's game."  
  
"Yes, so?" Sherlock demands, entirely undisturbed by that particular detail.  
  
"So," John says, "I'm willing to bet that most of you who are still walking around have met me."  
  
Sherlock smirks. "And you think me egotistical."  
  
John rolls his eyes. "No, I think you're an idiot."  
  
The smirk shifts, the transition smooth. What it changes into, John's not sure. It's hard at the corners and soft in the middle, and the meanings behind the shine in those grey eyes are as limitless as starlight.  
  
Sherlock slips into the hallway without another word, and when John follows him down the stairs to the loo, Sherlock hands him the remains of his coffee. "You obviously need the caffeine more," Sherlock tells him, entirely serious.  
  
"I'll make another pot," John replies. "I don't take mine with sugar."  
  
Another flicker across that face, a combination of indignation ("I know that") and resignation ("Yes, that's what I was asking") that John would prefer not to see.  
  
Halfway through mucking around with the coffeepot, John considers tea instead. It's quicker and he does have the surgery to get to. When he checks the cabinet, he finds an empty shelf. He checks the other shelves and everything else is as it should be. On a hunch, he checks the rubbish bin, and there they are, all the tea bags they own. The pile of PG Tips is covered with peelings and shavings of something yellow and the bags look damp besides. More worrying is the Twinings, all the teabags that had to be torn out of their individual paper packets. It's literally all of their tea, used up for John-won't-guess-what.  
  
Some late night experiment meant to take Sherlock's mind off things, he guesses anyway. Coffee it is, then. He gets dressed while it brews, absurdly awkward about pulling his clothing out of Sherlock's closet and getting dressed in Sherlock's bedroom. He's not actually sure where the hamper is. Sherlock's put away the shirt and trousers John wore yesterday. He debates over whether he's allowed to search for the hamper, but ultimately, he takes the path of least resistance and simply wears yesterday's pants.  
  
He makes his toast and pours his coffee, moving as quietly as he can, but when he calls "Want another cup?", he finds Sherlock has already left the flat. His coat's gone, at any rate.  
  
Disappointed to a degree that startles him, he fritters time away until leaving for his shift at the clinic. Everything is normal there, jarringly so. He and Sarah maintain the same pleasant, professional distance. Mr Clarkson is once again convinced he has an ear infection when it's his sinuses. Parents with coughing children refuse to understand antibiotics will not work on a virus. For all he doesn't recognize the receptionist—this reality is months ahead of his own, could be the reason—they fall into an easy banter when John's on his way out.  
  
After that, returning to Baker Street without returning  _home_ is disconcerting in the extreme. Sherlock is still out. John's mobile holds no new texts. Out of a terrible curiosity, John makes the mistake of checking the older texts. Most of it is the usual Sherlock, addresses of crime scenes and instructions for the shopping, but some of it...  
  
 _Molly still attempting to double date. Have informed her you are out of town. Act accordingly. SH  
  
I'm already at Barts!  
  
Not my problem. SH  
  
Yes your problem. Dinner at 7 on Friday your problem.  
  
John, no. SH  
  
Too late.  
  
John, no. SH  
  
We're going.  
  
John, no. SH  
  
Did you set your phone on autoreply?  
  
John, no. SH  
  
Right, then. How about we stay home?  
  
Offer excepted. You will be held to those terms. SH_  
  
He stops reading before he finds anything else more... more. He's smiling from it, yes, but....  
  
He clears his throat and tries to find something to do. Fortunately, Mrs Hudson comes in with her shopping a short while later, and John can go down and help her unpack. It doesn't take much prodding for all the recent gossip to land in his lap. Thank God for Mrs Hudson. A cup of tea, a good talk, and John feels steady for the first time since he died.  
  
  
  
Hours and a meal later, Sherlock is still out. After an absurdly lengthy debate over whether to text, John thinks better of it and goes back to sofa for the night. He tosses and turns, his room strange from this new angle, and just when he's about to give up and text Sherlock anyway, he blinks and finds himself on solid sheets and in a bed. Not feeling rested at all—does his body toss and turn while he's gone? he always wonders—he climbs out of bed all the same. When he checks his watch, it's close to ten: he forgot to set his alarm here-last night. Nowhere to go today, so he simply gets dressed and skips the shower.  
  
"Is it Saturday already?" he asks, walking into the sitting room. The question is entirely rhetorical.  
  
Magnolia Wilson looks up from her dad's laptop. "Hi, John."  
  
"Hello. Want tea?"  
  
The girl's eyes flick between him and the laptop screen, quick and wide. "I can get it."  
  
"No, stop, I've got it," he interrupts. "Laptop's on you now—that's practically a cat."  
  
He puts the kettle on and makes some toast. This long into their living arrangement, Derek's daughter has lost most of the shy awe that once would have had her helping—or taking over—in the kitchen regardless of whatever John said. John's not sure, but he has the odd feeling that he's entering into Uncle John territory. It's probably the most normal odd feeling in his life, though, so he's not about to complain.  
  
In the sitting room, Maggie sighs.  
  
John says nothing until the second sigh, which is when he realises that was his cue. He carries the tea in, sets it down, and likewise sets his problems off to the side. "Sorry, who's being an idiot now?" he asks.  
  
Maggie makes a face up at him.  
  
"Everyone?" he asks.  
  
"Basically, yeah."  
  
He sits down, Maggie complains, and most of it is honestly very repetitive. Most of it is about how she never sees one of her friends anymore.  
  
"And Dad says Alison's going to wise up and dump him, but she's totally not. This could last for ages."  
  
"Ages."  
  
" _Ages_."  
  
John nods and says, "It might."  
  
Maggie blinks at him.  
  
"I mean," he continues, "sometimes circumstances separate you from the people you care about-"  
  
"John, my parents are  _divorced_ ," Maggie interrupts. "I get that."  
  
"Fair point."  
  
Maggie fidgets a little on the sofa. "Sorry. You were saying?"  
  
"Well," John starts anew, "these things always feel longer when you're going through them. You need to remember that you have more than one friend, which you do."  
  
"Yeah, but Alison is my best friend," Maggie argues. "I mean, she's supposed to be. She used to be. But now she's off with her boyfriend and I'm fat and alone."  
  
John lifts his eyebrows, thankful for the opening at levity. "Maggie, do I have to give you the body-mass index lecture again?"  
  
True to form, Maggie ducks her head. "No..." A giggle lurks at the edge of her voice.  
  
"Because I could. I have studies and graphs and all sorts of things," John keeps on. He keeps on until she's laughing and he tries to laugh a bit too. That's the limit of his abilities.  
  
Right when he thinks they're in the clear, Maggie asks, "Do you have a best friend?"  
  
And, Christ, it must show on his face.  
  
"Oh, God, I'm sorry," Maggie backpedals immediately. "Sorry, Afghanistan, I forgot, I'm so sorry—"  
  
He holds up a hand and tries to smile and says something he can't remember afterward, but it does make her stop looking quite so guilty.  
  
"The thing about serving," he says once they're both on their laptops and don't have to look at each other. "It can muck things up. Deployment times, I mean. Not really sure who's waiting for who—"  _whom_ , a deep inner voice corrects "—whom. But we'll see each other again. It'll be good." And then because he's meant to be a responsible adult here and not someone who dumps his problems on a child, he adds, "Worse case scenario, you should invite Alison and her boyfriend to something."  
  
At that point, Derek comes back from his mid-morning run, and by unspoken agreement, the pair behind their laptops stop airing their problems.  
  
  
  
He wants to text Sherlock. Well, obviously he's texting Sherlock. The Sherlock here texts him now, and often. Showing off here, asking questions there. And John just...  _wants_.  
  
He might be tempted, but he already knows substitution is no solution.  
  
  
  
A rumbling stomach wakes him and the unending stench immediately tells him where he is. Grumbling, he gets up and tries to see if there's any sort of dinner left to be had on this ship.  
  
As it turns out, there is, but just barely. He gets a scolding for being late. The strangest part is, he's beginning to understand it. All the words, the way they fit together. It really was more than just a translation dictionary Sherlock crammed into his head. John has no idea how he did it. Days later and still without anyone to talk to about it, he doesn't know what to think. He wanted to talk this out with Sherlock in his new London, but then the man left and never came home.  
  
Came back, John corrects. He can't think of that flat that way.  
  
He eats his dinner listening to the talk around him, each moment feeling more and more back in the army. The more he understands, the better it is. He shouldn't be surprised by that, but he is.  
  
When he dares, he joins in. Just a little. Agreement here, disagreement there, nodding along and smiling when others laugh. Eventually, he risks asking, "Where is Sherlock?"  
  
The conversation around him trips, stumbles, and falls flat on its face. Everyone looks worried, and not casually so.  
  
"Sorry," John says, and stands. He knows he can apologise correctly, if nothing else. "Sorry, I'll, um."  
  
One of the sailors touches his arm, surprisingly delicate contact considering the sharp eyes glaring out from her blistered face. "It's all right," she says. She adds something else, something complicated that John can't entirely grasp.  
  
"He's down with the cows," says another. At least, that's what John thinks was said.  
  
John points downward, and the man repeats himself. Sherlock is with the cows.  
  
"I, um."  
  
"You'll be all right," the first sailor continues.  
  
"No, sorry, I—There's been a..." John gestures as well as he can, considering he has no idea what he's gesturing. "It's all right." More all right, now that he knows he's surrounded by people who look at mind control automatically as assault. That's reassuring, frankly. "I need to talk to him."  
  
"Are you—"  
  
"It's fine," John says. "Thank you, it's fine." He exits the galley as quickly and politely as he can. He wonders, how much does this look like someone going back to their abusive spouse?  
  
Lovely. Just add on another layer of complication. It isn't like he has enough going on, thanks. Just nearly, he didn't have enough to worry about. Glad to have that settled.  
  
It takes some trying and some asking for directions, but he finds his way back to the hold with the cows. The scent and sounds are something of a hint. John lifts the latch and enters. The inside is dim, little light filtering in through the wooden grating in the deck above. The animals shift now, stirring at John's entry. That's how John sees him, by how still he is against the wall.  
  
Sherlock doesn't look at him as John approaches, weaving carefully around the cows. Sherlock doesn't look when John stops in front of him, a respectful distance between their feet. Coat on even in the humid animal heat, Sherlock stands with his arms crossed, his face averted, his eyes distant.  
  
"Thank you," John says. "I can talk now."  
  
If it weren't so heart-wrenching, the look of shock across Sherlock's features would have been laughable.  
  
"Come back?" John asks, pointing over his shoulder to the door.  
  
"Come back?" Sherlock echoes, eyebrows raised high. It's clearly the last thing he expected to hear, entirely beyond the realm of possibility. It bodes poorly for Sherlock's grasp of John's possibilities.  
  
"Yeah," John says. "We can talk now. Come back." Simple sentences are all he can seem to muster just yet, but it's a start. It's a bewildering start. "I'm sorry I...." He doesn't know the word for panic, so he waves his hand instead.  
  
"No," Sherlock begins, but he breaks off into coughing when he tries to add something more forceful. He turns away, presses against the wall, and it's absolutely pitiful.  
  
"Hush. Come back. Sleep." John takes him by the wrist. "Doctor's orders," he adds in English, not in... Christ, he doesn't even know the name of the language he's learning. Someday, he'll find the limit to the madness in his life, but as Aragorn once said, that day is not this day.  
  
Sherlock rasps a bit, saying something John thinks might be "I shouldn't have done that" or "I should have done otherwise," but it all amounts to the same thing.  
  
"I can talk now," John repeats. "That's good. That's, um, good good."  
  
"Very good."  
  
"That's very good," John agrees, pulling him into the hall. "Yes? I learn now."  
  
"Yes, but why" a strange word ends the question.  
  
"Sorry?"  
  
"Why did you not remember?" Sherlock clarifies, and suddenly, that strange word is _forget_.  
  
John hesitates. "Talk in the room."  
  
Sherlock hesitates as well, then nods. Rather than let John continue pulling him, Sherlock twists his hand and levers his wrist out of John's grip. His fingers thread through John's immediately after, more aggressive than a dare and guiltier than sin. When John looks at him, the man flinches. Sherlock Holmes, flinching. He's so absurdly young.  
  
John will regret this later, he's certain. He'll regret anything he does here later. It's only a question of what he'll regret more and he can't stand that look on Sherlock's face.  
  
He squeezes Sherlock's hand and says nothing.  
  
Back in the cabin, he lights the candle before nodding for Sherlock to close the door. John sits on the bed. Sherlock takes it on himself to sit on the chair.  
  
"Why did you forget?" Sherlock asks. "Is it Moriarty? Part of what he did to you? Was there someone else, someone who could have" so many words John doesn't understand.  
  
"I, I don't..."  
  
Sherlock stops with a noise of absolute frustration. "Someone who... took your head and... made it bad." He visibly winces at the simplistic language.  
  
John's counterpart here has PTSD from something Moriarty-related, that much seems obvious."I didn't forget. I didn't know." He says it as gently as he can. "It's not here." He touches his head.  
  
Sherlock frowns at him.  
  
"I don't know how speak—"  
  
"How to speak."  
  
"How to speak. I need, um. More..."  
  
"Words."  
  
"I need more words," John agrees.  
  
"We'll speak. You'll have more words," Sherlock promises. "It's going to be all right."  
  
John shakes his head. Whatever Sherlock sees in his face, it's enough to keep Sherlock from arguing.  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
"I need more words." There's not a chance he can explain it properly, the way he is now.  
  
"Say it with small words."  
  
John shakes his head.  
  
Sherlock waits all the same.  
  
John tries to formulate a sentence. He keeps being distracted by the openness of Sherlock's face, the way every bump and bruise is set on display, every injury without bandage or comfort.  
  
Eventually, he settles on "I'm not the John Watson you know."  
  
Sherlock's expression changes slowly. No shock, no confusion. Pain and grief, yes, but these are emotions the man already has well in hand. "Yes," Sherlock says dryly. "I did see that."  
  
John's mouth winces into an apologetic smile.  
  
Sherlock's mouth winces in reply.  
  
"I'm sorry," John says.  
  
Sherlock shakes his head, eyes distant. They slide off John's face and wander through the wall.  
  
"Here and me," John struggles to continue. "I'm not, um."  
  
"You don't belong here. Obviously." Still not looking at John.  
  
"I don't know if the man you know can come back," John apologises. "The man I am now might stay."  
  
Sherlock's response is to look at the candle, his body angled toward John, his face turned sharply away. In the flickering dark, he's a stranger, handsome and young and very alone.  
  
He says something John doesn't understand, something involving himself and John and what an odd corner of John's mind identifies as a future tense. It's a promise, but of what, John's isn't sure, not until Sherlock explains, and explains, and explains until John understands.  
  
"I'm going to take care of you. The shelter you need, I will find. The help you require, I will provide. As long as you would have these words hold me, this I so swear, John."  
  
John swallows, not quite able to hold that gaze, not even in the dimmest of light. "The man I was.... You and he, you, um."  
  
Sherlock's knee nudges his. "Are you John Watson?" Rhetorical.  
  
"Yes," John answers all the same. "A John Watson."  
  
"Then I so swear." He coughs halfway through the sentence but does not, thankfully, keep coughing. He grunts a bit, as if there's a bad taste in his mouth. "I'm going for a drink," he says, and stands.  
  
"All right," John says. He doesn't offer to join him and he certainly doesn't ask for anything. It's obvious Sherlock needs a moment alone.  
  
John is still awake when Sherlock returns. The man smells of cattle even more and of beer not at all. John experiences a moment of confusion before remembering where milk comes from. It's not something he'd expected from Sherlock, but then, Sherlock's alcohol tolerance is laughably low. The beer would likely kill him. Still, dairy can't be helping that phlegm.  
  
"Not sleeping?" Sherlock asks.  
  
John shakes his head. "Words now. Sleep..." He trails off, waves his hand a little.  
  
Sherlock huffs the smallest of laughs. It’s a puff of air, nothing more, but for the first time, John is sure the other man understands him perfectly.


	3. Purple and Gold

Another morning, another lack of Sherlock in the flat. John makes himself breakfast, dumps the mouldy bread, and does the shopping. He comes home to a still empty flat and makes himself tea, opening the fresh box of PG Tips.  
  
 _I'm off to work,_ he texts.  _Let me know you're still breathing._  
  
When he comes back from the clinic, he receives confirmation that Sherlock is alive and, if not well, certainly active. Shaking his head, John pulls out another scrap of paper and puts "tea" back on the shopping list. Fortunately, John had thought to hide an emergency box.  
  
Going to the loo, he discovers Sherlock's door is closed. It wasn't earlier. He chews his lip, considering it. They do need to talk. They're going to have to, if only to confirm whether John should move out.  
  
He settles for a light knock.  
  
No answer.  
  
He checks his phone for texts. Nothing. He waits at the door.  
  
Eventually, he walks away and sits on the sofa, angled to see the hall. Sherlock won't leave without him noticing, which is the best he can muster at the moment. He turns on the telly but doesn't technically watch it.  
  
The buzz of the doorbell comes as a surprise. Realising that Mrs. Hudson is out, John heads downstairs before the noise sends Sherlock into a fit.  
  
"John, there you are," Lestrade says, more of a sigh of relief than a greeting. "Thank God," he adds, as if to make sure John has noticed his tone.  
  
John frowns. "What's wrong?" Oh, Christ, no. Was Sherlock's room empty, the door simply closed on the prat's way out?  
  
Lestrade frowns back at him. "I thought... Sorry, never mind. Is Sherlock in? He's not responding to my texts. I called, but it went to voicemail."  
  
"I think he's upstairs," John replies, leading the way. "What's this about?"  
  
The concern radiating from Lestrade spikes once again. "The case?" he asks pointedly.  
  
"Well, yes," John says, trying to play it off as obvious. "I meant more of the specifics. You wouldn't be here if you didn't have new information."  
  
"Fair point. Think I'll save the telling for both of you, if you don't mind the wait." Now Lestrade knocks on Sherlock's door, much harder than John had. "Sherlock!" No reply. Lestrade levels a look at John.  
  
John nods and opens the door himself. He sticks his head in.  
  
Sherlock is on the bed, on his side of the bed, and his unconscious body is tense in its curl around John's pillow. His arms are locked about it, face buried. He's fully dressed, down to his shoes.  
  
John immediately retreats and pulls Lestrade down the hall after him. "If he's collapsed on his own, he needs the sleep," John states in his best Captain Doctor voice. "I can record anything you need to say on the laptop—the microphone works now."  
  
"Look," Lestrade says, "I don't want to pry—"  
  
"Then don't," John finishes for him, quick and firm. "He's having a hard time right now. I'd rather not go into it."  
  
"Fair enough. But it's always a worry when he shows up at a crime scene without you in tow."  
  
"Sorry about that. My actual job, you know how that is."  
  
"Oh, do I."  
  
John makes them tea and Lestrade tells him about the case. They must be loud enough to wake Sherlock at last, or perhaps the man's body is simply that resistant to sleep. He shuffles into the sitting room, clothing rumpled, eyes blank, and he stares at the scene before him, Lestrade in Sherlock's armchair, John in his own.  
  
"Get out."  
  
Lestrade blinks. John can't fault him his surprise. For all the words are often shouted, he's never known Sherlock to say them like that, to simply state the command. It ought to sound hollow, empty as a cave, but there's an echo of something living in its undertones, the reverberating cries of something lost and hurt in the dark.  
  
"I've told John the details," Lestrade begins, standing.  
  
"Both of you," Sherlock clarifies. "Get out."  
  
John sets down his tea and stands as well, ignoring how Lestrade is gaping by now. "C'mon, Greg."  
  
He doesn't exactly remember the short walk outside. It's very numb, that much is clear.  
  
"Really, what is he on about?" Lestrade glares up at the window.  
  
"It's actually a very bad time," John says. "I can't give you the details, but—" He clears his throat. "He's not just having a sulk."  
  
Lestrade's eyebrows shoot up. Another glance up to the window, and his expression softens only marginally. "That so."  
  
"He's handling it surprisingly well, actually."  
  
"This is handling it well?"  
  
John considers Sherlock as he was that first morning, the simple assumption of contact as their bodies woke side by side. He considers the single bed and the joint office. Whatever John has with his own madman, this Sherlock had experienced to an even greater degree with his blogger.  
  
"Amazingly well," John confirms, and his voice breaks on the first word.  
  
Lestrade looks at him for a moment, then looks away. He puts his hands in his pockets. "Right, then."  
  
"Sorry. About him. The case. Whatever trauma he's caused." His voice strengthens as he speaks. If he keeps speaking, perhaps they'll forget about that little moment.  
  
Lestrade makes a face at that, shrugging. "Hardly your fault."  
  
Christ. John manages a good neutral expression. John manages his way through the remaining moment of conversation before Lestrade leaves. He honestly has no recollection of what he's said once Lestrade is gone. Then, John goes for a walk. A long one.  
  
He texts Sherlock from the far side of Regent's Park.  _Should I stay at Harry's?_  
  
The response arrives before he can pocket his mobile.  
  
 _No. SH_  
  
He walks a bit longer.  
  
Then he goes back to the flat. He hangs up his coat and finds Sherlock on the sofa in the sitting room. The telly is still on the channel John left it. John picks up his laptop, opens it, and reviews the latest blog entries. Always good to know what people will try to speak with him about.  
  
"He didn't notice."  
  
The words take a moment to register. John looks up, looks to the sofa. "Sorry?"  
  
Sherlock waves his hand, a dismissive flick. He glares at the ceiling. "Lestrade. Your impersonation passed muster."  
  
"'Impersonation'?"  
  
"Yes, when you pretend to be someone you're not and successfully deceive others," Sherlock replies. "That  _is_ what it's called."  
  
"Hold on now—"  
  
"What you do in Chelmsford," Sherlock adds. "After three years of practice there, it must have been easy to slip into the role here. Mrs Hudson hasn't noticed in the slightest! The clinic too—everything's perfectly normal, isn't it?"  
  
John shuts his laptop with a solid click, wanting to slam it. "I didn't do this on purpose."  
  
"No, only the research," Sherlock acknowledges. "Compulsively scanning for differences, checking the newspapers, checking the blog—you're very efficient. I imagine it helps that the role is similar. It's not technically lying when you have the same name."  
  
"Do you know what happens when I don't cover?" John demands. "No, really. Do you have any idea what happens to someone when they lose their memories and start talking about interdimensional sleep travel? You’re sectioned, Sherlock, not believed."  
  
"And you know this from experience?"  
  
John shakes his head. "No. And I don't care to."  
  
Sitting up, Sherlock rolls his eyes and opens his mouth.  
  
"No," John interrupts. "We're not trying that. It was bad enough in Chelmsford, back at the start. I had no idea who anyone was, barely knew where I was going. It was the worst experience of my life and I've been shot twice—I've been shot  _fatally_."  
  
"That was the worst," Sherlock repeats, voice even. His gaze is level, very, and John has the sense of a trap about to close around him.  
  
Fine. So be it. John barrels in further. "It was. I would fall asleep in pain and wake up there, and then it would be a day of reverse culture shock. The way I  _stood_ alarmed people. I would walk down a hall and people would ask me what was wrong, and I couldn't tell any of them, because then I would be crazy. I'd look in the mirror and it wouldn't be me. It was the only place I didn't hurt in some way, but it wasn't my body. But I was still a doctor, still responsible, still every damn thing I was supposed to be, except it's not really mine, is it? I'm a steward in my own body. I take care of his house and his car and his friends, and that is the best I can do, because I don't know when he's coming back. Yes, fine, I impersonate him. It's that or be sectioned."  
  
Sherlock stares at the far wall rather than look at him. "Excuse me if I don't find your guilt a comfort."  
  
"I don't expect you to."  
  
Sherlock’s glare snaps back to John.  
  
"I'm a placeholder,” John continues. “I know that. But a body needs someone in it to run it, so until he comes back to do the job, I'm going to keep moving and breathing. Unless you'd rather give up hope. There's a gun upstairs I can always put in my mouth. It's not me it'll end. Or him either, if you really think he's not coming back."  
  
Sherlock's face is very pale. Noticeably more so.  
  
"Or I can go on lying to people," John says.  
  
Sherlock looks down and closes his eyes.  
  
"Should I go on lying, then?"  
  
Sherlock nods. In his silence, the news on the telly is loud and obnoxious.  
  
"Sorry," John says after a pause. "That was harsh."  
  
"Necessary," Sherlock corrects, a rasp to his voice.  
  
They go out later. John doesn't know where to until Sherlock gives the cabbie the address, and he doesn't know what they're doing until Sherlock ducks behind some bins. John hides as well, they wait, and a bit of a chase ensues. John tackles a man, which is  _excellent_. It's a very rewarding practice, tackling criminals. John restrains the fellow while Sherlock deduces at them and they wait for the police to arrive. It's very neat, surprisingly so, and when Lestrade arrives in the police cruiser, relief bursts across his face.  
  
For a short while, everything is quietly, naturally normal. Sherlock interrupts John while he's trying to give his statement, Lestrade talks over the interruptions, and John tampers down a grin.  
  
Once they're finished, they go out for Chinese.  
  
"Did you come here after the bit with the cabbie?" John asks.  
  
Sherlock nods, breaking apart his chopsticks. "I'm assuming you did as well."  
  
John nods. "Both times."  
  
"Both?"  
  
"Well, not both," John allows. "I only had to get him the once. Over in Digital, though, I emailed Jennifer Wilson. The pink lady? So she never took that cab. And I sent in an anonymous tip to the police. I found out the next day there they'd arrested him."  
  
"And then you went for Chinese on your own?"  
  
John shakes his head. "Not that night. The night before, I staked out the college, just to be sure. No one showed up. So I had dinner."  
  
The waitress comes and the pair of them order in unison, both men ordering the same dishes for the table. There's an awkward pause and a nervous chuckle all around.  
  
"Do you running around saving everyone, then?" Sherlock asks once the waitress has moved on.  
  
"Where I can." John shrugs a little. "It's... odd. Because every time I make a move, I make it all drift apart a little more. Eventually, the differences might mean my foreknowledge will be gone."  
  
"How big of a difference can you make?" Though doubtful, he's not dismissive.  
  
"Well," John says. "You. For a start."  
  
Sherlock frowns.  
  
"Did I mention you're dead in Chelmsford?"  
  
"You did."  
  
"Did I mention that Moriarty didn't blow up Baker Street? Or that the nine million quid hairpin was never found? Or that the painting was accepted as real? No idea what happened to the missile defence plans, but there might be something there too. It stacks up."  
  
A pause for consideration, then the nod. It's flattering, in a way, being complex enough that Sherlock needs to stop and think. "But you still try to save everyone," Sherlock repeats.  
  
"The people I've met or seen dead," John replies. "Yes. Beyond that, not really. Have to put a limit on it somewhere."  
  
The waitress brings the tea. They thank her and remain silent as John pours.  
  
"How well have you navigated the language barrier so far?" Sherlock asks.  
  
John looks at him, tries to find the words to explain it, and has a few nervous giggles as a response.  
  
Sherlock frowns. "That poorly? No, not poorly. Something else. What?"  
  
"You're not going to believe this."  
  
"Oh, yes, because the situation was reasonable until now."  
  
John laughs again and explains.  
  
Sherlock stares at him.  
  
"I'm not lying," John says.  
  
"I can see that," Sherlock replies. "That's why it's so bizarre. Hypnotism doesn't work that way."  
  
"I know," John agrees. "It's... very strange." To say the least.  
  
Their food arrives and they respond with a coordination born of long familiarity. This plate here, that one there, the sauce goes to Sherlock's side of the table and Sherlock asks the waitress for another pair of chopsticks before John inevitably drops one of his on the floor.  
  
As they eat, Sherlock asks after what John has learned since the last time they discussed his condition. Most of what John has to report is about the boat universe.  
  
"Mind you, it's a bit blurry over there."  
  
"How so?"  
  
"It's a boat without fresh water," John says. "I think I’ve been put off beer for life."  
  
Sherlock grins faintly at his look of disgust.  
  
Much later, when they walk home, John carries the leftovers in their cartons, the stapled paper bag in one hand.  
  
"Who else knows?" Sherlock asks as they wait for a light to change.  
  
"Hm? Oh. About me? My flatmate in Analogue."  
  
"Who you still haven't seen."  
  
John shakes his head, eyes on the traffic.  
  
"Was he aware another John Watson might cast you out of your body?"  
  
"We talked about it, yeah. At least, I talked about it, and he told me to shut up."  
  
They walk across the street.  
  
"Then I'm the only one you talk to," Sherlock concludes.  
  
"I tried explaining it to the one on the boat, but I don't think he understands yet."  
  
"I see."  
  
They walk a bit farther.  
  
"I'll take the sofa tonight," Sherlock says.  
  
"No. I'm shorter."  
  
"I'm aware of your height. I'll take the sofa."  
  
"No offense," John says, "but I'd rather not. I orient when I wake up and, well. Analogue watch, waking up in your bed... I don't want to raise my own hopes like that."  
  
Sherlock considers. Nods. "You've been wearing it upside-down."  
  
"Have to differentiate somehow. I don't really need to—it's very obvious—but it helps."  
  
"Are you doing anything in the boat world?"  
  
John shakes his head. "The homespun clothing is a bit of a giveaway."  
  
Sherlock huffs a laugh and John laughs with him.  
  
"Are we okay?" John asks, after. "Because we've just met, but you are the closest thing I have to a best friend at the moment."  
  
Sherlock doesn't look at him, but he does nod.  
  
"Okay," John says. It's a start, and a better one than he'd thought he'd have.  
  
  
  
The next day down in Wandsworth, John makes a point of making a few suggestions to Maggie. Anything she wants to do with her friends, she should do—within reason—and if Derek wants an adult to tag along, it can be John. "Best friends are important," John says.  
  
In the end, Maggie rings Alison up. She shifts a bit, biting her lip as she nods to the rings and John nods at her encouragingly. After, Maggie fidgets and fidgets until Alison calls back with the confirmation: she and that boyfriend of hers can do something on Saturday. The boyfriend wants laser tag. Maggie agrees, her eyes lighting up.  
  
"John?" she asks, grinning wide.  
  
"Yes?" John asks, already grinning back.  
  
"Will you come shoot everyone?" She bites her lip and does an excellent impression of a puppy.  
  
"What?" Derek calls in from his bedroom/office.  
  
"Nothing!" the pair of them shout back in unison.  
  
"Should I be concerned?"  
  
"No!"  
  
Considering that John spends the afternoon teaching Maggie hand signals and creeping across the apartment in improvised stealth drills, perhaps some concern is warranted.  
  
It's all very James Bond. John says this, Derek finally comes out to play, and the night closes with the three of them on the sofa, Maggie and the popcorn in the middle, watching a mini-marathon of Bond.  
  
  
  
John's good mood lasts through the night, unfailing even in the face of terrible smells and pointy elbows in his side. The smell isn't so bad, now that he's had time to acclimatize, and he stops minding it in a few minutes after waking.  
  
He pulls himself out of a familiar hold, leaving Sherlock to grunt in his sleep, his long arm searching for the missing heat source that is John. Certain parts of John's body take an interest in this, which John's mind pointedly ignores. John sits on the chair, lacing up his boots, before taking to the ship. He talks today, which is new.  
  
Also incredibly overdue. He finally gets a few questions in about where they're going. He learns, almost incidentally, that no one is terribly confused by John's accent, seeing as this language, something like "Frank" (or "Franc"? "Frainc"?), is meant to be John's second language as it is. He asks everything he can about their destination, how much longer it will be (only two or three days left, two with good wind), and whether there's anything to drink besides beer (there is not).  
  
He stands up on deck for a time, watching the waves and the ship itself. As the sun climbs, the sails glow gold. Once the unrelenting heat becomes too much, even for a soldier formerly in Afghanistan, John retreats below deck. Sherlock has moved from their cabin. Where to, John can't be sure. For a moment, he thinks to search, but then he realises that he is, for once, alone.  
  
He closes the door, pulls out the bucket they shit in, and considers whether it's too soon to wank in this body. He lights the candle to make sure he'll be able to aim at least a little, which is essentially the moment he decides it's not too soon. He spends far too much time pressed against Sherlock, and now that the man's illness is improving, their motions in bed have become less sympathetic and more deliberate. Despite everything John's said to him—or tried to say to him, rather—there's a definite sense of expectation coming from Sherlock.  
  
Hopefully, John will be able to explain the situation fully before the issue is pressed. That should be interesting either way. Once the coughing stops, John won't have any other excuse to not kiss him.  
  
All right, this isn't helping. This body hasn't had a wank in days, possibly longer. John unfastens his belt opens his trousers and stands awkwardly between door and bucket. On second thought, he sets the chair in front of the door and secures it there with his foot.  
  
He closes his eyes and lets himself think. The first thing he'll do to Sherlock when he gets home, what will that be? There will be snogging, of course, after the convincing. Yes, John is back, John is home, all is well, let's celebrate, come here, you. So, snogging first. Breathless snogging they try to speak through, messy and determined. They'll shove at each other's clothing, not their own.  
  
Underwear down now. He starts with just his left hand, his right on the bunk to steady himself with the rocking of the ship. Christ, this hand is rough. Okay, that's strange. That is really fucking strange. It comes to the edge of putting him off, but it's been days, and John has only been wanking in his usual universes as it is.  
  
Fingertips, not palm. Try for teasing. Bit less weird. Bit less like Sherlock, too. He'd be all rush, John's first time back. This, though, this is more a few days in. More sure of each other again, more willing to take it slowly. He closes his eyes again, picturing Sherlock kneeling over his legs, smug and chiding as John pushes for more skin. Fingertips stroking John's thighs, a right tease. Stroking and, wait, what's this?  
  
John shifts a bit and draws the candle nearer. Are those pox marks? There's a number across the top of his right thigh. But not his left. Curious. Odd sort of puncture marks, he sees now, not pox at all. It's not illness, doesn't look to be a needle, and unless this John Watson fell naked into a small patch of brambles, the cause isn't obvious. John tries to imagine what might have caused that, but he's no Sherlock Holmes, and he has an erection besides. Limited window of time means he has to have priorities. He'll ask Sherlock about the marks later. John doesn't doubt the man has seen them.  
  
He resumes his wank and manages to push through the strange texture of his palm. It's far from satisfying and close to abysmally lonesome. He cleans up as much as he possibly can, blows out the candle, and sits on the bunk for a few minutes. Once he thinks his recent activities won't be completely obvious, he goes out and rejoins the ship.  
  
Sherlock is in the galley for once. Equally surprising, he's with a book. That's encouraging only until John sees the job the printers have done. Modernity is far away indeed. He sits next to Sherlock, wondering how much else might be out there if the printing press has been invented.  
  
"Where'd that come from?" John asks.  
  
"On loan from the captain," Sherlock answers, not looking up. "I finally badgered her into it."  
  
No electricity, but a lady captain?  
  
"What kind of...?" John asks. He leans forward, hands folded on the table between them.  
  
For a long, very disconcerting moment, Sherlock stares at John's hands. Then he snaps his eyes up to John's face. "The word you're looking for is 'book.'"  
  
"Book," John echoes. "What does it say?"  
  
Sherlock begins the lengthy process of introducing a new concept. Familiar words build into the unfamiliar. "Things that happened where we're going. A long time ago. History."  
  
Perfect. "Read it to me?"  
  
Sherlock does.  
  
Though John's vocabulary expands greatly from the experience, each word imprinted into his memory, the actual content of the history settles into only a vague outline. Certain noticeable bits jump out—"a very similar situation to you and that crossbow bolt, as it happened," Sherlock says of a bodyguard botching an assassination with his own body as a shield—and those are the ones John keeps.  
  
Odd, how he'd not thought to look at his shoulder. The ache in the cold and the morning are too much a part of him to be wondered at. Then again, he's hardly taken his clothes off here. He can't wait for land and a good bath. Only a few days now.  
  
Sherlock reads to him without pause or regard to their audience. The edgy looks the sailors give Sherlock improve somewhat at seeing them like this. John wonders how terrible their previous rows on the ship had been.  
  
Eventually—John doesn't know how long it takes—someone else in the galley chimes in, another passenger John barely knows. They treat Sherlock warily, like a bomb of deduction about to break into insults at any moment. Must be a sensitive soul.  
  
All told, John feels like he's stuck in the exposition portion of a film or a novel, and he presses his advantage there as long as he can. A curious expression and "No, of course I'm interested" bring him far. It also, over the course of the afternoon and then the evening, brings Sherlock to his side, then against his side, and then with his hand a motion away from possessiveness. When John laughs at a man's joke, Sherlock's hand lifts from the table and moves under it. The hand on his thigh is clearly some sort of warning. There's no tablecloth and it's not subtle in the slightest.  
  
The tension returns.  
  
John reaches under the table, elbow hitting Sherlock's arm, and takes the hand off his leg. He brings it back onto the table, threads their fingers together, and resumes the conversation as if nothing has occurred.  
  
In hindsight, perhaps not the best decision for when they are inevitably alone. In practicality, perhaps the only way of demonstrating that Sherlock's mysterious mind control powers do not mean domestic violence is running rampant between them. Really, there's probably no way of doing that, but it does make everyone slightly less nervous.  
  
Even with the protective display, Sherlock vanishes when it's time for dinner. John's side goes cold, missing the solid press of another body, but the benches soon grow crowded. The talk gets rougher, louder, more boisterous. It's more food than usual, the promise of shore relaxing the rationing.  
  
The singing starts earlier than it usually does, but that might be the abundance of beer and yet more sorts alcohol that suddenly emerge from the cupboards. John sings along with a man slapping him on the back. It's a good, laughing time. Jokes and stories and something brown in a bottle with a stopper that tastes so much better than the piss-like beer. When prodded for a song, John responds with a hodgepodge of what Derek sings in the shower, rock and oldies and everything else besides.  
  
This confuses everyone, of course, so they demand he do it more. Drinks all around again. John decides the best thing to do would be to stand up and sing Bohemian Rhapsody, just for the hell of it, but he forgets the words less than halfway through. This goes over incredibly well anyway, partially because of yet more of the brown stuff which hits John in the face. Metaphorically. It hits him in the face metaphorically.  
  
So does the realization. That he's having fun. Right here. This. Having fun. This is a good time.  
  
"Oh God!" he cries in English. "Where's Sherlock?" He stares blankly at a blank look. "Sherlock." Tries again. "Where is he? He doesn't like... this. Parties. Always off on his own. Sad. I gotta. Him. I'll him."  
  
He tries to stand up and promptly falls on the floor. So he laughs. Because it's funny, because it's hard to stand on a boat, and because when Sherlock sees him, Sherlock will know John fell down and Sherlock will laugh too and John  _misses him_.  
  
So John staggers to his feet and keeps a hand on the wall and says goodbye to all of his friends, and he loves them, really, he does, he loves all of them, except for that fellow, him, he's a bit of a git, and John staggers down the hall and is very. Careful. On the stairs.  
  
He succeeds at stairs, which is always a good sign, and he does not crack his head open by falling, because he does not fall. Though if he did fall and crack his head open, he might wake up back home. That would be nice. But uncertain, so he doesn't risk falling and cracking his head.  
  
Except the floor is a bit damp, because this is a ship, and so he slips once he stops being so careful, and the ship lurches, because this is again a ship, and John laughs once he stops being so winded. He curls onto his side, giggling. He didn't crack his head. Good. Good, but still no Sherlock, none.  
  
"John, what are you-? Ah."  
  
And then there is.  
  
"Sherlock," John says. He cranes his neck a bit. His face begins to smile for him. "Sherlock!" He flops his hand back in the direction of the galley. "You weren't there. So I came here."  
  
"The word for your condition is 'drunk'," Sherlock supplies. John has already heard this word back in the galley.  
  
"Lonely," John corrects, though he only knows the word in English. He sits up and takes a better look at Sherlock's face. It's a nice face. Very open, which makes John worry. Sherlock is worried and showing worry, so of course John worries.  
  
He tries to stand up, but can't quite manage it with the swaying of the ship. Sherlock helps him. Sherlock pulls him close and half drags him. John is tucked under that arm, tucked like he fits there, like this is a place he belongs, but he doesn't, he doesn't and he's not about to.  
  
Sherlock manoeuvres them into the tiny cabin and closes the door and then it's them and the candle on the table with the borrowed book. John sits on the bunk, then staggers off the bunk to take off his jacket. It's all damp. Don't want the damp on the bed. Sherlock even thanks him for doing that, an absentminded little word that John hears most during cases and mid-experiment.  
  
In the dark, he's practically the same.  
  
Sherlock reads him well, too well, always reads him too well. He steps into John, against him, and holds on as if Sherlock is the one in need of comfort. John holds on, and holds on, and Sherlock is much too thin, the man is practically starved. Where John touches, clothing falls away, which is strange, because John isn't the one doing that.  
  
Then John has a shirtless man in his arms, which is nice, which is not something he would have thought a few years ago, which is a bit too much perspective to have at this moment. Even in the dark, especially in the dark, he knows this chest. "Sherlock," he says and looks up.  
  
He should not have looked up.  
  
Because looking up means Sherlock is looking down and they're looking at each other. And Sherlock's eyes are doing that soft thing they sometimes do, but usually only after orgasm or when he thinks John won't catch him at it.  
  
So, no, the kiss does not come as a surprise.  
  
The firm pressure, the heat. The overwhelming familiarity. No surprises. Even the sensation of having a bit of a beard while kissing, not a surprise.  
  
Sherlock making a gagging sound after the first lick into John's mouth, that is a surprise.  
  
John hurts himself laughing.  
  
With more than a little bit of a flounce, Sherlock sits on the bed and pulls the sheet over his bare shoulders.  
  
"Don't sulk," John urges. He climbs onto the bunk with Sherlock and remembers to take off his boots. Untying them is a little difficult, but he manages nicely. "There we are." He looks at Sherlock again. "Don't sulk."  
  
Sherlock lifts an eyebrow, clearly sulking.  
  
"Because," John says, "I am drunk. And right now I am happy. And in a... a..."  
  
"Moment."  
  
"In that. I'm gonna be sad."  
  
Sherlock touches John's face. He scratches the beard a little, which is curious, but good. "Because you're on this ship with me."  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"That's why you're sad."  
  
John nods.  
  
"You want to go home."  
  
John nods. He sets his back against the wall and slides sideways, shoulder against Sherlock's arm. He plops his head on that hard shoulder.  
  
Sherlock shifts a bit. John allows himself to be shifted. Sherlock begins to pet his hair again, which is very nice.  
  
"That's very nice," he says.  
  
"Come here," Sherlock says.  
  
John does. He knows Sherlock likes him like this, sitting on his thighs. He holds onto those shoulders and sets his forehead against that long neck and ignores the rocking of the ship. A hand in his hair, a hand up and down his back.  
  
Once his knees hurt, John eases back. This seems familiar, is familiar, but the setting is very wrong.  
  
"Any better?" Sherlock asks.  
  
"I want to go home."  
  
Sherlock touches his face. "Someday. I promise you that."  
  
"You can't. No one can promise that. _I_ can't promise that."  
  
"Quiet." This kiss is hard, upset.  
  
John opens his mouth, huffs out a breath, and the tongue meeting his doesn't shy away a second time from the taste of alcohol. It's wet and messy and it's like scratching the wrong bit of skin, it's like rubbing an itch through trousers. It's close enough to what he needs that it might be what he wants.  
  
The air is cold against his skin. The sheet is rough. John breaks the kiss by pulling Sherlock down on top of him, which is probably not how this should go. His cock continues its attempts to resist the horny stupor of alcohol. It likes Sherlock's hand, even through his trousers.  
  
"Not going to happen," John tells him, pulling that hand away. "He's fallen and he can't get up."  
  
"You don't want to?" God, the fear in that voice. Not rejection: fear.  
  
John hugs him tight. "I'm  _drunk_."  
  
Sherlock remains tense against him until John pets his hair. Once John has the strands between his fingers, Sherlock positively melts. It's amazing hair. John's is in a bad state. No showers, no baths. Sherlock's is soft and fluffy and not actually the texture it should be. John would wonder about that, but Sherlock starts moaning against his neck, and then there is licking and kisses and this is very nice, but it's not helping with the guilt.  
  
John eases him back.  
  
Sherlock frowns down at him. "What have I done wrong now?"  
  
John shakes his head. Distraction, he'd had an idea for a distraction, what was, oh, right. "Think," John says. "You, um. I want you to, to look. And think. And tell me. About what you see."  
  
"Deduce."  
  
"Yes! Yes, that."  
  
The frown deepens. "What, now?"  
  
John nods. "Scars." He touches his own chest.  
  
Sherlock looks. Sherlock looks and he touches and John remembers all the mornings his madman played the violin for him, musical associations of home. John remembers the care of loosening the bow strings and setting the instrument away. The unthinking reverence in those hands.  
  
Sherlock tells him things John will want to remember come morning, but he forgets many of them immediately. Most of them immediately.  
  
He remembers when Sherlock opens his trousers. He remembers lying there so relaxed and watching, feeling the touch to his thigh. The palm against his leg, the thumb stroking the marks.  
  
"Me," Sherlock states, and when John looks, Sherlock is staring directly into his eyes. "These are mine."  
  
Experiment, John translates. John rolls his eyes, a grin pulling unevenly at his mouth. "The things I let you get away with."  
  
Sherlock stares down at him.  
  
Sherlock stares down at him for a long time.  
  
John reaches down and pats Sherlock's hand. He tugs at his trousers, urging them up. Sherlock helps with this.  
  
John turns his face against the pillow. He pulls at the blanket, and Sherlock lies down, covering them both. Sherlock gathers him up.  
  
Eyes closed, heart strange, John begins to doze. Almost there, getting there, and Sherlock murmurs into his ear. The pronouns are simple, "you" and "I", but the verb is one Sherlock hasn't used before. It's one Sherlock may believe John doesn't know.  
  
John wouldn't, if not for tonight, if not for the singing. But love songs are love songs, and that's enough to teach one word.  
  
He falls asleep pretending not to have heard.  
  
  
  
It's another morning in Chelmsford and he hates knowing a hangover is waiting him. That's the first thought: he's about to be hung-over on a boat without water.  
  
The second thought is a great deal of profanity.  
  
Something about all that gives John an inkling, just an inkling, that the man on the ship still has no idea who John is. Because that? Was not appropriate behaviour. Not for fresh acquaintances. For an established relationship, fine.  
  
A very established relationship, going by the conversation. John's put his foot in that one, no mistake about it.  
  
Because John can't. That was worse than Jake when he was with Sarah. In so many ways, worse.  
  
Was that cheating?  
  
The sick feeling in his stomach tells him it was cheating.  
  
They're going to have a very strange row about this later, John's sure of it. A very strange row indeed. He thinks about that for a few minutes until his mind lapses into predictions of angry sex. They're nice thoughts, and they soon turn gentler. He sits at the table, breakfast half-eaten, until Marta rings the doorbell and forces him out of it.  
  
  
  
When he wakes, Sherlock is playing the violin. Not Mendelssohn. Something else. Lying on the sofa, missing his bed, John closes his eyes and decides to wait out the rest of the playing.  
  
It goes on and on, and eventually, he must move or fall back asleep or rage or cry. He gets up. He goes downstairs and dresses in Sherlock's bedroom. He ought to take his things from the closet but knows it would be crossing a line. They aren't truly his things.  
  
In the kitchen, there is again no tea. He sets about making coffee.  
  
The music stops. "What now?"  
  
John looks over his shoulder, confused. "Sorry?"  
  
"This is a new kind of guilt," Sherlock informs him. "I haven't seen this one before."  
  
John closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and does not throw the empty kettle at him.  
  
"Interesting."  
  
"Fuck off."  
  
"Mm, no." A measuring look, but not a long one. "The one on the boat, then."  
  
"No," John says. "Really. Fuck off."  
  
"I'm exacerbating the issue very easily," Sherlock continues. "Too easily. This is to do with the one on the boat."  
  
"Caffeine first, yelling at you later."  
  
"But I haven't done anything."  
  
It wasn't the Mendelssohn, John doesn't say. He'd woken, heard the violin, and it hadn't been the Mendelssohn. It had been the confusing sounds of almost home.  
  
"Ah," says Sherlock. "That's exactly it. Something yours does that I don't, and the difference is-"  
  
"Would you  _shut up_!" John yells. "Can you not do that, please?"  
  
Sherlock grins at him, as bright and vicious as unsheathed honesty. "So you do react."  
  
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"  
  
"You've been unerringly calm since the beginning," Sherlock replies. "You reported your own death as if speaking of little more than a bad dream. Your initial dilemma was whether you could sleep your way elsewhere before you had to tell me the truth. I once imagined it would be an improvement if you thought with your head before your heart, but that was predicated on the assumption that you would eventually use both."  
  
"I need you to stop talking now," John tells him, voice tight.  
  
"You don't."  
  
"Yes," John says. "I really do."  
  
"Can you look me in the eyes when you say that?" Sherlock asks, voice containing nothing but curiosity. "You look away when you speak."  
  
John looks at him. When he opens his mouth, his gaze tries to slip from him.  
  
"You hadn't noticed. Not surprised. You prefer to avoid conflict when it involves a vulnerable emotional component. If you had someone to defend besides yourself, it wouldn't be an issue. It reflects well on your character: many children of alcoholics are extremely adverse to conflict—"  
  
" _Will you shut up?_ " John yells.  
  
"Particularly the children of abusive alcoholics," Sherlock continues. "It's a concern for you, particularly due to your sister's alcoholism. If you've begun over-imbibing on the ship—"  
  
" _How_ -?"  
  
"You're guilty, embarrassed, and the cause is related to me, therefore to a version of me. The only other currently available to you is the one on the boat. Had this changed, your mood would have changed drastically in another manner. Now, it's a guilt you don't feel entirely to blame for, but a strong guilt. You previously mentioned beer as the only available beverage on board. You previously mentioned waking up in his bed as well. You also stated that you've tried to convey your situation to him, but his understanding was questionable.  
  
"Therefore, you were drunk, he presumed, nothing happened, and you feel terribly guilty anyway. It's not the perceived trespass that's bothersome. It's the condition. You're self-destructive when emotionally disconnected."  
  
"Stop—stop talking." His voice breaks into a whisper.  
  
"No. This is the fourth day here, meaning you're finishing your second week. No progress, no change, both for you and your condition. How many days has it been?"  
  
John shakes his head, eyes shut tight.  
  
"How many days, John?"  
  
"Fourteen." He swallows. Clears his throat. "Two weeks."  
  
Sherlock walks away.  
  
The sound of the motions startles John's eyes open. "What...?"  
  
Sherlock returns, briskly tosses John his Belstaff coat, and says, "Get it out of your system. I'll be back late."  
  
"But—"  
  
"It's not that cold out," Sherlock replies and leaves in the suit jacket alone.  
  
John stands in the kitchen, holding the coat. It's very heavy, too heavy for one hand, so he folds it over one arm and hugs it to his chest. He stands like this for a very long time.  
  
  
  
Lunchtime finds him in his armchair, still trying to read the newspaper. Sherlock's coat sprawls across the man's empty chair. John hasn't cried on it or smelled it or talked to it, none of those coping mechanisms. He's had his denial and anger, but he's far from finished with bargaining. After bargaining comes depression and John is not doing that again. More anger, more bargaining. He can push his way through this. He'll break it before it breaks him. He simply has to discover how.  
  
Eventually, the coat is an annoyance. It just sits there and sits there and John keeps looking at it. He starts gazing at it, his mind wandering.  
  
He swallows, shakes his head, and pushes himself to his feet. He picks up the coat and heads to the hall, intending to toss the coat onto Sherlock's bed and have done with this forced mourning. He gets as far as opening the door.  
  
On the bed, John's tan knit jumper is bundled up by the pillows. It wasn't there when John dressed earlier. Its presence is a deliberate message, one John understands immediately. Because not only can Sherlock read minds on a good day, he can effectively predict the future. He knew John would come in with the coat, he knew John would see the jumper, he knew John would connect the two, damn him, and John doesn't need this. He really does not need this, knowing that Sherlock thought of giving John his coat to cuddle and cry over because Sherlock's done the same with a jumper. It's like Sherlock has his finger on a button in John's brain, one he never even had to discover because the twat put it there himself.  
  
And this, here. Here with a joint office and a single bed, here with something that is serious and long term, here where John's socks have been incorporated into Sherlock's sock index, it's taken four days,  _four_ for Sherlock give up and to skip to the grieving. There's pragmatic, and then there's fucking heartless. John is not finished fighting yet. John is not about to be finished, not ever. His bastard back home had better not be finished either.  
  
He means to throw the coat down, to cast it onto the floor and storm away and slam the door, but he needs to swear more. He curses into the fabric, long and loud, and the scent hits him where it hurts.  
  
He's going home. He doesn't need to know how or when, not when he knows he's going home. He can't and won't stay here. He recognizes this as a lunatic approach to life, but that doesn't, won't, can't matter. His entire life is lunatic. Every damn piece and, no, he is not about to start crying. He's in control, he's all right, he's going to be fine. He's a grown man, a doctor and a solider—  
  
—except now he isn't.  
  
He isn’t a soldier anymore. No more active duty for the rest of his lives. That part of him is gone and it's not coming back.   
  
The thought breaks something, some towering wall, and the crumbling begins before he can take another breath.  
  
  
  
A few terrible hours later, John takes a shower and drinks yet more water. His head hurts terribly, but he won't take anything for it. The pain is numbing. Convenient.  
  
He permits himself a bit of a lie down, which is how he winds up on the bed, the coat beside him.  
  
"You'd better be waiting," he mutters to it. “Don’t give up on me, you arse.” There's more to say, but none of it could ever sound right when spoken to an empty coat.  
  
  
  
Sherlock returns while John is doing the washing up after a solitary dinner. With the radio on and singing absently along, John doesn't hear him come up the stairs.  
  
"Do you do this often? Mine doesn't sing."  
  
John manages to look at him without flinching. "Derek's influence." He nods toward the plastic bag in Sherlock's hand. "What's that?"  
  
Sherlock reaches inside and lobs a small box toward John.  
  
John catches it with wet hands. Frowning, he turns it over and reads the label. "I didn't know they made binary watches."  
  
"Obviously, they do."  
  
John dries off his hands, opens the packaging and looks at the metal band. "I have no idea how to read this."  
  
"That's hardly the point."  
  
When John removes the analogue watch, Sherlock takes it. John puts the binary watch on in its place. The metal is strange against his skin and the purple LED lights indicating the time give it a very sci-fi feel.  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "You're not even going to set it?"  
  
"I just said I have no idea how to read it and you think I know how to set it?"  
  
A sigh now, and Sherlock moves in to take care of it. The proximity is strange. Close bodies, fingertips against his wrist: it's exactly the sort of thing that ought to put his body on alert. It doesn't. It's not comfortable, but it's a discomfort that reminds John far more of Mycroft than of his own Sherlock Holmes. Someone who knows too much, has gotten too close, and clearly has a plan for John's immediate future. Someone who is more than capable of taking care of things, and in a way John might not like.  
  
"You can hardly 'go back' to your Analogue London if this one is labelled the same," Sherlock explains, pulling back and stepping away once he's finished.  
  
John blinks slowly. "I thought... Today was some sort of... I don't know, grieving day?"  
  
"Processing," Sherlock corrects. "Fatal physical trauma derailed you here and to the ship. It's possible you're stuck here and the ship reality—and learn the name of it, we can't keep calling it 'Boat World'—it's possible you're stuck because of the finality of your injury. If you can process it, you might return home. Failing that, we find a way to trigger you."  
  
"One? I don't think it works that way. Two, there is nothing wrong with calling it Boat World."  
  
"It sounds stupid."  
  
"Really not the point."  
  
"Yes, you were sidetracked," Sherlock says. "We need to find a cue that would transfer you away. You mentioned music before."  
  
John nods. "It was meant to be like a personalized ringtone for each reality. He'd play the violin when I woke up, but playing a recording somewhere else didn't do anything to send me back to Analogue ahead of schedule. Not definitively, at any rate. Two times out of ten, at best."  
  
"And this when moving between realities you were still stably connected to," Sherlock muses, eyes narrowed into the middle distance. He looks entirely unaware of how ridiculous that sentence sounded. "But it is your mind which travels. Forcing it to reach for connections is the obvious choice."  
  
"Yes, but that didn't work."  
  
"Do you have any other ideas?"  
  
"Ah, no," John admits.  
  
"There we are, then."  
  
  
  
He wakes up to the sounds of water and Derek singing. So far, no change. He spends the day jotting down ideas and the evening dreading his hangover to come.  
  
  
  
Oh. Oh, God.  
  
Christ.  
  
 _Fuck_.  
  
Footsteps, shouting. Loud talking. Thin walls. The unending creak of the ship itself. John tucks his face against Sherlock's chest and tries desperately to not have ears. It doesn't work.  
  
With the deliberate coordination of someone wide awake and fully hydrated, Sherlock covers John's upward-facing ear with one hand and pulls the sheet over his head with the other. John relaxes marginally, but it's still terrible.  
  
They lie still, very still, until the rush of morning motion passes. Sherlock's breaths are deliberate and slow under John's cheek. Gentle fingers shift over John's face, fingertips languidly scratching at the scruffy beginnings of a beard. John spares a thought to appreciate how his beard no longer itches. The one good piece of this scenario, but he has a good piece.  
  
Stroke by stroke, the scratching transitions into a full investigation. Across his cheek, along his jaw, under his nose. The inspection of his nose bit is strange, but a soft grunt is enough to make it stop. The touch moves lower, moves to his mouth and John turns his face away, moves just enough to lie face-down. One cheek still rests against the bare skin of Sherlock's side, and Sherlock shifts with him. He massages John's scalp gingerly, the touch full of tension until John groans his approval. It helps. Stuck here without water, let alone anything for his head, John will take whatever he can.  
  
They stay like this for what feels like an unreasonable amount of time. Except it can't be. Sherlock should have become too bored and wandered away by now. John chalks it up to modern attention spans and the lack of modern anything here. He closes his eyes and lets himself feel like a lazy old dog on a Sunday. Sherlock's certainly petting him like one, as if he's fragile.  
  
"We need to talk," John remembers. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth as he tries to speak.  
  
Sherlock shushes him.  
  
John is glad to be shushed. The shirtless cuddling is innocent, at least at the moment. He'll lay down the boundaries later. He'd move his arm off from Sherlock's middle, but there's honestly no space.  
  
He feels Sherlock's stomach rumble against his arm. It's an odd sensation. Sherlock ignores it, so John does as well. It repeats, now audibly. Sherlock tenses under him. John entirely fails to respond. Normally, he'd press, but he can't be arsed to make Sherlock get up and eat. A lack of movement is a very good thing. It's very dim in the cabin, wonderfully dim, and Sherlock leaving would let in light and make noise besides.  
  
He hurts too much to doze and attempt to sleep it off, but he hardly wants to. No, he'll force through. Slowly. Even so, he's nearly drifting off despite himself when Sherlock's stomach begins making painful sounding noises.  
  
John grunts at him.  
  
Sherlock sighs. "I'm not going to—" His stomach interrupts him.  
  
John shoves at him with his shoulder. "Go. Don't like the noise."  
  
It's a terrible excuse, but it's enough to make Sherlock move. John stays where he is, face down on the bunk. It smells terrible, but not as terrible as the inside of his mouth tastes. He pulls the sheet up, cold. A moment later, something cloth lands on his back.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Your shirt," Sherlock tells him.  
  
"Ta."  
  
"...Ta?"  
  
"Ta," John confirms.  
  
Sherlock rubs his back a little.  
  
John hums. If he knew the word for "disconcerting", he'd use it. Too nice. Hard to protest when all he wants is an aspirin. Still, it makes him feel as if there's some head in the fridge Sherlock is trying to apologize for, as if this Sherlock is the sort to apologize for a head in the fridge, which he probably isn't. Sherlock touches John as if certain permission will be revoked any minute. Admittedly, he’s not far off.  
  
Once John is close to comatose, Sherlock leaves. For some time, John wobbles toward the edge of unconsciousness, kept awake only by the sounds of the ship and the knowledge that he desperately needs to drink something. He repeatedly pulls his tongue from the roof of his mouth. It makes an interesting sound, one he'd rather it not make.  
  
Finally, John remembers the cows. Cows and Sherlock never smelling of alcohol. Milk. Better than nothing. Better than more beer. Hair of the dog never cured anyone.  
  
It takes John a very long time to muster the will to sit up and put his shirt on. He stands, faces the sway of the ship with more stoicism than he'd thought he possessed at the moment, and puts his jacket on as well. Where are his boots? Oh. He puts those on, too.  
  
The journey to the hold is a quick, miserable one. He opens the door without anyone speaking to him and enters. Inside, there is perfect, blessed silence.  
  
Perfect silence in a room full of cows.  
  
Cows and Sherlock.  
  
John's hand stays on the door, a stabilizing touch. Because his head hurts and the ship rocks, and that makes everything a bit dizzy. He blinks a little. This doesn't help. The cows are all still focused on Sherlock, every last one turned toward him like iron fillings to a magnet. Sherlock is still hunched by one, hands gentle on the animal's wide neck. His back is to John, his head bowed.  
  
He's making noises. The only noises in the room. Soft, slurping sounds. Wet sounds, swallowing, gulping sounds.  
  
John backs up. He doesn't move through the door, merely shifts enough to make the hinges creak.  
  
A twitch in Sherlock's shoulders proves he's heard, but it's long moments before he finishes. John waits, his stomach a tight, sick knot. When Sherlock straightens, he doesn't turn around.  
  
"Yes?" Sherlock asks.  
  
"Are these milk cows?" John asks.  
  
"No." His back remains turned, his head bowed.  
  
"Oh."  
  
The cows begin to shift, to properly make noise again. The world feels real again.  
  
"All right," says John. "Never mind, then."  
  
He retreats into the hall and Sherlock fails to so much as twitch. John closes the door. John walks away.  
  
Well, that was more disturbing than a head in the fridge.  
  
  
  
Sometime in the afternoon, sitting out of the way on deck and as much in the shade as he can manage, John realizes his headache has diminished. Not gone, not entirely, but diminished. He's still terribly dehydrated, but they'll reach land tomorrow or the day after. He'll be all right.  
  
What he's less certain about is the man currently approaching him.  
  
"Feeling better?" Sherlock asks, taking a seat next to John below the stairs. Their legs may stretch out between them, but Sherlock is close, sitting shin-to-thigh with him.  
  
"A bit," John allows.  
  
He wants to ask.  
  
He should probably ask.  
  
"Sherlock," he begins. There are words to come after, all strange and awkward. He has them in English, but only in English.  
  
"You said you wanted to talk. You mentioned it this morning in bed."  
  
John clears his throat. He looks across the deck, unable to withstand Sherlock's unwavering gaze. "I did, yes. About last night."  
  
"Ah." With a lift of the chin, Sherlock settles back against the barrel behind him. "I've overstepped."  
  
"You were carrying on as usual," John allows. "Nothing wrong in that, but it's awkward now."  
  
"I see." Sherlock looks across the deck as well.  
  
"I know it can't be comfortable having me like this," John continues. It's easier now with the force of those eyes lifted. "I'm not your John Watson and I know it hurts-"  
  
"Yes, so stop saying it," Sherlock snaps.  
  
"-but pretending I’m him won't help," John says over him. "Look. I'm sorry, but I need you to stop treating me like I'm him."  
  
"I'm not. I understand that man wasn't you. I understand that on a very fundamental level, John. He wasn't you. I know. We've been over this."  
  
"I'm not sure you do," John replies. "This is a language problem. It has to be. This isn't the way you'd be reacting otherwise."  
  
"And how would I be reacting?" Sherlock challenges. "Tell me that."  
  
"Resentful. Hurting. Avoidant." To name a few.  
  
"I've already done that."  
  
"Not that I've seen."  
  
Sherlock frowns back at him. "Yes you have."  
  
"No," John says. "No, I haven't. Or else you were very quick."  
  
"I wasn't, and you have," Sherlock insists. He leans forward, hand on John's knee. "Are the—" strange word "—coming back?"  
  
"Sorry, I don't know what that means."  
  
"When you entirely forget an event that you were present for," Sherlock explains. "You'd be standing, talking, moving, but not yourself." And then the word has meaning.  
  
"I'd black out? No, sorry, he'd black out?"  
  
"No, not him. You."  
  
John shakes his head. "No, still no. I haven't blacked out. Look, anything that happened before the morning I couldn't speak, that wasn't me."  
  
Sherlock's hand tightens on his knee. His facial expression doesn't change. "What do you mean by that?"  
  
Oh, Christ. "I only came here that morning," John says. "Until that morning, it wasn't me here. I don't remember anything that came before because I don't know it. It wasn't me who lived it."  
  
Sherlock's eyes slowly widen. "And you simply... woke. With nothing to trigger you. Was it timing? Are you remotely aware of the mechanics?"  
  
"I was injured in Afghanistan and I woke up here," John says. He hasn't the words for a bullet wound. "It's happened before."  
  
"Afghanistan?"  
  
"A place. Far away. I left England and I went to Afghanistan. There's a war. I was there to be part of the war. I've tried to explain before, but I didn't have the words to do it well. I still don't. I was in Afghanistan and I was hurt. I woke up here instead. Then I went to sleep and woke up in other places."  
  
"You dreamed."  
  
"No, I was awake."  
  
"Oh, not this again." Sherlock leans forward. "They feel real. I believe you when you say they felt real. But those are dreams. The war is over, no one is firing at you, and this is where you are now."  
  
"But not all the time," John insists. "I go to sleep and I wake up in London, or Chelmford, or another London."  
  
Sherlock mouths the names before changing tactics. "If you don't remember anything before four days ago, how do you know me?"  
  
"I don't. Not you, this you. I met another man named Sherlock Holmes somewhere else."  
  
"Where?"  
  
"England," John says. "In London. At St. Bart's."  
  
A smile breaks across Sherlock's face. "No, that was here," he says, sounding so very relieved. "We met at Bart's."  
  
"No," John says. "That was you and the other John Watson. I'm talking about me and another Sherlock Holmes. I know it sounds strange, but at least try to listen."  
  
Sherlock tries to take his hands and says with absolute confidence, "You're confused."  
  
"I'm not. It's just... big. And I don't have the words for it yet. But I'm not the John Watson who was here before, not even before that." It's beginning to sound as if there were multiples. Somehow. John's even less certain about that.  
  
"I understand that,” Sherlock says. “Something has caused you to change again. I don't know what the trigger was yet, and I don't know whose—" strange word "—this is, but we can work around this," Sherlock promises him. "This proves it was more than Moriarty who took you from me. This is more than a reaction to broken—" strange word. "You developed your own language overnight. Of course it's more than a reaction."  
  
"Sorry, a broken what?"  
  
Sherlock repeats it.  
  
John frowns at him. "I don't understand."  
  
Sherlock touches his breastbone. "When I  _speak_ ," he says, emphasizing the last word in English.  
  
"How you taught me all the words?"  
  
"Yes! Yes, exactly. Glamour."  
  
"Glamour," John repeats.  
  
Sherlock nods. "You say you don't remember."  
  
"Because I wasn't there when it happened."  
  
Sherlock holds up one hand to silence him. "I'll tell you. What we know: Moriarty came to Bart's. He put his glamour on you and held you hostage against me. He made you say things and do things that you would never have done otherwise. The man he made you be is not you. I know that. You are not responsible for anything he made you do. You know that.  
  
"I killed Moriarty and broke the glamour. You're all right now. Or, you were all right. You were going to be. You were improving.  
  
"Then this. This is clearly more than a relapse. So, the question arises: whose glamour is this now? It can't be Moriarty and I was sure he didn't have anyone else with him, only those men under glamour. If you can't remember who it was, that makes it all the more difficult to fix."  
  
"Wait, hold on," John interrupts. "That's not, no. That's not what I'm saying."  
  
"No, I know what you're saying, and it's wrong."  
  
John sets his jaw. "Beg pardon?"  
  
"I understand that you believe this, John," Sherlock assures him. "Truly, I do."  
  
"I believe it because it's  _true_."  
  
Sherlock tries to put his hand back on John's knee. John counters by pulling his legs up and sitting cross-legged. After a pause, Sherlock does the same, steepling his fingers.  
  
"John," he says, "your mind has been sorely played with. You may not remember it, but it happened."  
  
"And then something else happened too," John insists. "Are you going to listen to me or are you going to sit here and tell me I'm crazy?"  
  
"You're not crazy," Sherlock says. "You've been poorly used. There's a difference."  
  
"He was poorly used," John corrects. "I'm not him, either of him."  
  
"You're new. I do see that now."  
  
"We do agree on that much?"  
  
Sherlock nods. "We do."  
  
"All right." John chews his lip, looking down at his folded hands. If only his head didn't hurt so much. "I told you all of this before. I had to say it in English. Do you remember when I spoke to you? For a long time."  
  
Sherlock nods. "Yes."  
  
"Right then. This is what I was saying." He explains. For a considerable amount of time, he explains. He pauses only when Sherlock informs him they're attracting attention, which is true. They retreat into the humid dark of the cabin and sit, John in the chair, Sherlock on the bunk. John continues speaking. His mouth turns drier and drier. He uses every detail he has, every detail he can think of, but once the issue of technology enters the discussion, he knows he's lost Sherlock entirely.  
  
"That's very elaborate," Sherlock admits.  
  
"Could I have come up with that on my own? Or could have someone told me all of that and made me remember it all at once?"  
  
"A combination," Sherlock tells him. "You could have been given the basic instructions, told to think of the rest, and only be triggered once the entire situation had been devised."  
  
"Even supposing that was possible, why?" John demands. "You think someone did this to me for, what, fun? To do what?"  
  
"To make you go mad," Sherlock answers simply. "To make you appear mad, certainly. Not to mention, this effectively took away your voice. It's a bizarre yet effective security measure. Barely a fortnight after you were no longer needed and you go mad in a way utterly unrelated to-" strange word.  
  
"Unrelated to what?" John asks.  
  
"People like me," Sherlock says.  
  
"As opposed to...?"  
  
"People like you. As in, animals like cats and animals like dogs."  
  
"You mean... people with glamour and people without?" John asks. It's a strange skill, John will admit, but John can hardly point fingers on that account.  
  
Sherlock nods. "People with glamour who drink and people without who eat, yes." Strange word "—and humans."  
  
John frowns at him. "I... what?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Sorry, I don't think I followed that," John apologizes. "Did you just say you're not human? Do I understand that word right? Human, as in the kind of animal that I am."  
  
Sherlock looks at him very oddly indeed. "That's what a human is, yes."  
  
"And you're...."  
  
Sherlock repeats the word, voice full of impatience, eyes full of concern. And something else. The fear is back, the dread of rejection to come.  
  
People who drink and have glamour, he had said. Who drink.  
  
John thinks of the cow and the swallowing. John thinks of the scars on his leg and the way Sherlock had proudly, tentatively claimed them.  
  
"You're a vampire," John says, using the new word.  
  
"If you're going to try to stab me over it again, could we not do it on the sheets?" Sherlock asks dryly.  
  
"I'm not... No," John says. "I'm just... surprised."  
  
"You saw me this morning in the hold."  
  
"Yes, and I was surprised then too."  
  
"Less surprised than you should have been, for absolute ignorance," Sherlock counters. "The last time you discovered my species, your reaction was much more adverse."  
  
"You mean, he tried to stab you?"  
  
Sherlock's mouth pulls to the side. "You remember."  
  
"No—you just said."  
  
Sherlock pauses, nods slightly. "The question arises: why the calm reaction now?"  
  
"Um." John blinks a little. "Well, you're not exactly a threat to me. That's a start. I don't hurt people who don't threaten me. I've been helpless here in more ways than I can count, and you've only ever helped me." He scratches the back of his neck. "The rest of it doesn't seem terribly important, really."  
  
"No?"  
  
"Should it?" John wets his lips as much as possible with a dry tongue. "I mean, what's the normal reaction?"  
  
"That depends on where you're from," Sherlock replies. "Where we're going, it doesn't matter as much. Where we met, it mattered greatly. This place you say you've come from in your sleep, what there?"  
  
"Only humans," John says.  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "You think there are only humans."  
  
"No," John says, a solid no. "I'm a doctor. I know there are only humans."  
  
Sherlock's eyebrows flick up. "You're a doctor."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Prove it."  
  
John blinks at him again. "I—How? You've largely recovered from your chest problem and I wouldn't know how to treat a, uh. A vampire in the first place."  
  
"Basic anatomy will do."  
  
"When I don't know the words in your language?" John thinks for a moment. "Is there paper? A pencil?"  
  
"There can be."  
  
John nods. "Get them and I'll show you."  
  
It takes a spot of procuring. John remains in the cabin until Sherlock returns. They go to the galley and the adjoining mess to sit at the table. Then, with utter confidence, John begins to draw. Two versions, one from the side, one from the front. As he sketches the internal organs, he feels Sherlock tense beside him, but John doesn't look up.  
  
"There," John says. He begins to point and name in English. Once finished, he looks up at Sherlock, more than slightly smug. "Any questions?"  
  
Sherlock gapes at him. Any other man, and this would be nothing more than an expression of curiosity and surprise, the brow furrowed, eyes focused and mouth slightly open. On Sherlock, it's gaping. "Where did you learn that?"  
  
"England," John says. "London. Bart's, actually."  
  
Sherlock looks at the drawings and bites his lip. His teeth look normal, which immediately arrests John's interest. They did snog last night (four nights ago) and John hadn't noticed a thing. Retractable fangs? They might fold back like a snake’s. John wonders while Sherlock digests his evidence.  
  
"At Bart's with Mike Stamford?" Sherlock asks.  
  
John startles. "What? Yes."  
  
Sherlock abruptly looks much calmer, much more self-assured. He nods to himself, and John realizes he's somehow negated his own evidence.  
  
"Sorry, no," John corrects. "Not Bart's here. Not this... place, not here. Not a place you know. In England. A different place. The same names, but a different place."  
  
"Might I tell you about this 'place'?" Sherlock offers.  
  
"No," John says. "I'm not from here, anywhere here. I'm from somewhere else. I'm different. You know I'm different. You can tell. I'm not whoever he was."  
  
"He  _is_ a soldier," Sherlock replies, eyes flicking down to John's right side, his thigh. "Are you a soldier?"  
  
The answer sticks in his throat.  
  
"Yes," Sherlock concludes.  
  
"I used to be."  
  
"John, that's a poor lie. What's more, it's a sullen one."  
  
"I'm a doctor."  
  
"Defensive now."  
  
"Sherlock!"  
  
Sherlock smiles at him faintly. It could be John's imagination, but John knows his face too well, his nuances too thoroughly. "There's your temper," Sherlock remarks, as if he's opened the front door and let the cat in. "I did wonder where it had gone."  
  
John takes a deep breath and fights down the urge to stand up and storm off. It takes some fighting.  
  
"All right," he says instead. "Tell me about this place. Where we left and where we're going."  
  
Sherlock smiles, all with his eyes, and begins.


	4. Orange

By the end of Sherlock-the-vampire’s explanation of Boat World, John's head hurts again. It hurts a great, great deal, even with lunch and dinner in his stomach.  
  
"All right, I think that's enough," John tells him, holding up a hand. "Actually, wait, no. One question. You actually know about the current political situation?"  
  
Sherlock blinks at him. "Obviously. I did just say."  
  
"Do you need to know?"  
  
A nod there. "In order to remain outside it," Sherlock replies wryly.  
  
"Something tells me that didn't work...?"  
  
"Not in the least," Sherlock answers, his voice devoid of regret. He smiles at John, eyes crinkling. "There are worse results."  
  
John stares at him. "What did he do?"  
  
"'He'?"  
  
"Other me. What—"  
  
"John, stop." He doesn't take John's hands again, has possibly learned not to. "It wasn't your doing." An odd sort of grin, pained and fond both. "The entire point is that it wasn't your doing. I'll explain in full before we dock tomorrow, but I believe you have enough to consider for the time being."  
  
"I think so," John agrees dryly.  
  
Sherlock smiles at him. Amused and open and so incredibly affectionate. It hits John between the lungs and bids his mouth to mirror Sherlock's. He can't, too guilty and strange, but the impulse to try remains.  
  
John coughs and looks away. "Look, um. Until I'm back to normal," he says, "we shouldn't do anything. In bed. Or out of it, really. We might not agree on how, but we do agree that the John Watson who belongs here is not in his right mind."  
  
"You mean last night was a mistake."  
  
"Well, no. We didn't do anything."  
  
"It was the first time I'd kissed you in twenty-two days."  
  
"Ah." John does his best and, no, there is no good response to that. "That must have been very anti-climatic." He only knows the word in English.  
  
"Very what?"  
  
"You, er, thought it would be good but it wasn't."  
  
Sherlock looks away rather than reply.  
  
After a moment, John does this as well.  
  
The awkwardness only increases when they settle down for the night. Sherlock refuses to lie head-toe. In hindsight, rolling over and putting his back to Sherlock was a bad move. Unthinking on John's part, it's clearly a motion Sherlock interprets as extremely trusting.  
  
Ultimately, they settle down back-to-back, but John already knows he'll wake here with at least an arm around him.  
  
  
  
In Chelmsford, he takes out the notebook of his current daylist. He flips to the back, the note section. He writes down  _Everything I thought I knew is wrong._  and underlines it.  
  
He has an awful lot of thinking to do, and he does it.  
  
  
  
Sherlock stares at him over his morning coffee. He takes a slow sip.  
  
John goes on buttering his toast.  
  
Finally, Sherlock says, "If the differences are no longer exclusive to your personal history, it widens the spectrum of reality to an unprecedented degree. Forcing your subconscious to move may be less feasible than previously believed."  
  
"I'd thought so," John replies. He bites into his toast.  
  
Sherlock continues to stare at him.  
  
John swallows his toast.  
  
At last, Sherlock snaps. "John, honestly, how did it take you four days to realize he was a vampire?"  
  
"It's not exactly a common scenario, last I checked."  
  
"This from the reality-hopping man?"  
  
"It's not hopping. It's jumping. Sliding, maybe. Don't call it hopping. And he went outside in daylight. He's crossing so much running water and he's not in a wooden box."  
  
"He's in a ship! A ship is a wooden box!"  
  
"Oh, come off it! You can't call it obvious in hindsight."  
  
"The hypnosis was highly suspect," Sherlock counters.  
  
"Yes, because that's what makes people think of vampires," John agrees very sincerely indeed. "That's the first detail right there. And it's meant to be eye contact, I always thought, like the Master in Doctor Who."  
  
"Delgado, you mean."  
  
"Yes. And besides, it's not like you eat regularly anyway. Honestly, you- Wait, hold on. You know who Roger Delgado is?"  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes.  
  
John starts grinning. "Did he convince you to watch  _Doctor Who_? Really?" It's more than John's ever managed.  
  
Sherlock's chair scrapes against the floor. Standing, Sherlock steals John's other piece of toast and storms off into the sitting room.  
  
...Still sensitive, then.  
  
  
  
Compared to Binary, Digital London is a safe haven beyond compare. The limits to what John can say to Derek are fairly low when it comes to personal information, but the lines are clear and orderly. They make sense.  
  
He complains a bit to Derek over dinner. Generic sort of complaints, but Derek hears so little out of him normally that he treats the confidences with respect. It's odd, almost formal, and there's something about the exchange that makes John wonder if he would know what normal flatmates interaction looks like if it were right in front of him.  
  
He honestly doesn't know.  
  
  
  
He wakes slowly, lazily, his body exhausted and his mind following suit. He shifts his arm a bit, caught in the half-dozing state which is the closest he ever comes to dreaming, these days. Sherlock, his body registers, pressing his hips against that bum. Sherlock. His cock is the most awake part of him.  
  
John presses closer, snuggles closer. His eyes are closed against the tickle of soft, dark hair. He adjusts his hold, fingers slipping between buttons. Sherlock's heart races under his fingertips and a far off corner of John's mind finds this odd. John takes the obvious, calming choice of action and brushes a sleepy kiss to the back of his neck.  
  
The cloth his lips find is not the neck of an old t-shirt.  
  
Buttons, John realizes. He withdraws his hand. He shifts backward, but Sherlock shifts with him, keeping his arse planted against John's crotch.  
  
John rolls over.  
  
After an immeasurable length of silence, they pretend to wake up.  
  
"Morning," John says.  
  
Sherlock-the-vampire grunts.  
  
John stays where he is, trapped between Sherlock and the wall.  
  
There is another immeasurable length of silence.  
  
There are the sounds of breakfast being called.  
  
John sits up.  
  
Sherlock doesn't budge.  
  
John gives him a minute, then climbs over him and goes to the mess. They're eating better the closer they get to shore, it seems, as they should dock before evening. Sure enough, the cry of "land!" goes up before John is halfway through his meal.  
  
His stomach sinks, taking his appetite with it. There really is a larger world outside this ship he'll have to face soon. He remains in the mess, picking at his food with his fork.  
  
Even at that pace, he's nearly finished by the time Sherlock comes to find him. No other reason for Sherlock to be in the mess or the galley, this Sherlock.  
  
"We need to discuss ramifications," Sherlock tells him.  
  
"...All right," John allows.  
  
"In private."  
  
"Everyone can hear through all the walls."  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "With the cows, then. They'll mask our speech." He storms off immediately, not waiting for John to contradict.  
  
John sighs, cleans up after himself, and follows. Down in the hold, sitting on a crate, Sherlock ignores John when he enters. Only once John sits and prompts, "What is it?" does Sherlock so much as look at him.  
  
"We were involved in a matter of difficulty in the north," Sherlock replies, formal and serious in a way John has never known this him to be. "There are going to be repercussions. They will begin the moment we leave this craft. Our story must be consistent."  
  
"What else?" John asks. "You wouldn't be this worried if that was it."  
  
"Were."  
  
"What?"  
  
"If that  _were_ it. Grammar, John."  
  
"Sorry, still learning." A pause. "Oh. Is that what you mean?"  
  
"Partially, yes."  
  
"But more specifically...?"  
  
"Oh, I don't know," Sherlock replies. "You appear to have gone mad, for a start. You have no recollection of any of our shared history, let alone your own, and you recently forgot your mother tongue."  
  
"At least I can speak now."  
  
"Yes, in Franc," Sherlock agrees. "You were never fluent in Franc to begin with. You speak Anglic. It simply made more sense to teach you the language of where you were heading, not where you were leaving."  
  
"Will the difference be obvious?" John asks.  
  
Sherlock nods. "If any sort of representative is sent to retrieve you, glaringly. There will certainly be news by letter. Demands, I should say."  
  
"What kind of demands?"  
  
"In any case, I'd hoped we'd be able to discuss what our story was going to be, but now there's little point. No one will believe you to be in a reasonably untampered state. Either you've been snapped along with the glamour or you are currently under glamour. There is no other believable option. As far as I can see, there is no way to cast the situation in a positive light."  
  
John nods gently and tells himself this is seasickness. "And what are the ramifications?"  
  
"You were in the service of a man called Lord Mayhew, Keeper of the Western Domain," Sherlock replies. "Due to Moriarty's interference at Bart's, where you were keeping guard, we believe you are wanted for treason."  
  
John blinks. "Oh. Oh, god. Okay. Um. Am I guilty of treason?"  
  
"The laws for treason are stupid."  
  
"Oh, great. So I am guilty." He stops, shakes his head. "He's guilty." Pronoun difficulty there.  
  
"It won't matter to him what persona you are," Sherlock tells him. "If Mayhew retrieves you, you will die."  
  
"Oh," John says. Abruptly, the situation doesn't look quite so terrible. Life imprisonment would have driven him around the bend. "Quick sort of death, is it?"  
  
"John, don't joke. Now, that is the first threat. The second is from the northeast. By killing Moriarty, I created a power vacuum there. Whoever emerges as the leader will attempt to solidify their rule by binding it to Moriarty's, which means revenge on us. Me, specifically, but you're involved. They'd likely have my head and you would be kept as a thrall."  
  
"I'd rather Mayhew," John says.  
  
"For good reason," Sherlock allows. "Now, there is a chance for sanctuary Belgravia. That’s on the south of the gulf, where we’re arriving. Unfortunately, that chance is entirely based on you being in your right mind and able to consent to a protection arrangement."  
  
"Oh," John says. "You mean, if your John doesn't come back, I'm facing death or life imprisonment."  
  
"Death or enthrallment," Sherlock corrects. "Yes."  
  
"And you didn't mention this until today."  
  
"Between teaching you an entire language and the histories of several species and cultures? No, I didn't mention this until today," Sherlock snaps.  
  
John winces an apology. "Right. Just to be clear, what would the protection arrangement be? And can we fake that somehow?"  
  
Sherlock glares at him. "No."  
  
"All right, no faking. But what is it?"  
  
Sherlock glares at an unsuspecting cow. He fumes.  
  
John waits.  
  
"It's a personal arrangement," Sherlock states. "It carries certain rights. If we were... sworn, then I would have been legally in the right to kill Moriarty."  
  
"...Sworn. Like... Not like..." Twenty-two days without a kiss and John has to marry him?  
  
Sherlock turns the glare back on him.  
  
"I don't know the word," John reminds him.  
  
This doesn't lessen the glare.  
  
"At any rate, neither you nor 'he' is interested," Sherlock tells him, voice as sharp and rough as his eyes. "And as you are literally unable to consent, the point is moot. As matters stand, it will be assumed that I was the one to hide your memories away in order to conceal the damage I've caused."  
  
"But you didn't," John says. Not in protest, simply in trust. "We both know you didn't."  
  
Sherlock shakes his head. "You don't know that."  
  
"No, I do, because I'm not the one with the memories to erase. He is. I know you don't believe me—I probably wouldn't believe me either—but I do know you weren't mucking around with his head."  
  
Sherlock shakes his head. "You assume that. You don't know that. If under glamour for honesty, as you would be in a court setting, you would have to admit that you don't actually know that. You have no knowledge whatsoever of a situation that could potentially be resolved, at least in part, by your willing compliance. It's unlikely this could have been planned in advance by Moriarty, and I never saw another of my kind with him.  
  
"Now, this may point to madness, but it's an incredibly systematic madness, which is symptomatic of an active glamour interacting with a struggling mind. Your world has been rearranged as a result. That's what everyone will say. So, a glamour is in place. You were on a siren ship, but siren song fades. This won't fade. Therefore, it was me."  
  
"But it wasn't."  
  
"But nothing can prove that it wasn't," Sherlock says. "Unless it can be proven that I haven't—" He looks down, bites his lip. His eyes flick up to John's. "That I haven't abused you. Well. It will be assumed that I have."  
  
"And if I swear you haven't?"  
  
Sherlock shrugs. "I could be making you defend me."  
  
John presses his palms against his closed eyes and tries to think. It doesn't help. He lowers his hands. "What do we do?"  
  
Sherlock watches John's hands. He's strangely small and very sad. "If I'm guilty of mistreating you—taking your mind, forcing you from your post, kidnapping you across the gulf—then there will be no protection for you against Mayhew. There may possibly be some against the northeastern vampires, but it will effectively be a race to see which tries to claim you first and which has the better claim."  
  
"But what about you?" John asks.  
  
Sherlock closes his eyes. He shakes his head.  
  
"...Is it that bad?"  
  
"John," Sherlock says, voice thick, "I need you to stop exhibiting concern. Immediately."  
  
"Look, if I die, I'm off to a new life. The dying bit isn't good, but I'll be fine," John tells him. "I don't think the same applies to you."  
  
"Your religion is moronic."  
  
"That's not religion, that's fact."  
  
Sherlock opens his eyes long enough to roll them. He curls in on himself, pale and small as a sick child. "Oh, and I neglected to mention. The only reason you were permitted on this ship in the first place is because we lied and told them we were sworn. All the while you were exhibiting classic symptoms of abuse by glamour."  
  
"Sherlock."  
  
"What?" Sherlock slaps the word down between them, more a verbal strike than a demand.  
  
"We're going to think of something," John says. "News travels slowly, doesn't it? We've been quick with the choice of ship, haven't we? Then we're ahead, at least for a little while."  
  
"Not for long enough."  
  
"It's a start. Just... Don't give up on me and I won't give up on you. All right?"  
  
Sherlock refuses to look at him.  
  
"All right?" John asks, and waits.  
  
Sherlock nods, the guiltiest John has ever seen any of him.  
  
"Is there anything else I should know?" John asks, and Sherlock makes a noise like the underside of a laugh.  
  
"Oh, a few things," Sherlock answers.  
  
"Oh, good, only a few," John says. "And here I was starting to worry."  
  
  
  
The ship comes into harbour, and they return to their cabin to gather up their things. There's not much, merely their coats and a knife John is apparently supposed to hold onto. It doesn't match the sheath that fits onto John's belt, neither in material nor shape. It's loose and makes John paranoid of it falling out as he moves.  
  
It wouldn't be worth noting if it weren't for Sherlock's reaction. He eyes John's moment of physical awkwardness with obvious distress. Obvious for Sherlock.  
  
"Why don't they match?" John asks.  
  
"You lifted the knife from a man in Waterloo," Sherlock replies.  
  
"I—" John immediately drops his voice. "So on top of being wanted for killing a vampire warlord, we're going around committing petty theft?"  
  
Sherlock doesn't look at him. "The man in question was about to harm me."  
  
"Oh," John says. "Fuck him, then."  
  
Sherlock looks at him.  
  
John clears his throat and buttons his coat over belt, sheath and knife.  
  
"Like this," Sherlock corrects. His hands take over, adjusting, unbuttoning. John holds his breath as Sherlock unfastens and refastens his belt. Far from an excuse for a quick fondle, the motions are reverent, disconcerting in their dedication. John lowers his gaze and stands his ground as Sherlock reshapes him in another man's image.  
  
"Ready to go?" John asks quietly. "You do know where we're going, don't you?"  
  
"Mm. We're to be escorted. We stay here until then. We might not have an audience for several days."  
  
"Audience with who?"  
  
"The Lady," Sherlock replies, straightening John's collar. He smoothes it out with enough care for John to remember that this man is a vampire. Bit worrisome.  
  
"And who else, the Tramp?" John asks. The mixed-language reference flies over Sherlock's head in two different ways, but Sherlock understands a joke when he hears one. Well, sometimes. He does this one.  
  
"The Lady of Belgravia. She's a" strange word. Sherlock sighs when John looks at him blankly. "Like the captain." Still nothing. "The captain of this ship?"  
  
"Sorry, is the captain not human?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Oh," John says. "How common is that, people not being human?"  
  
Sherlock just looks at him.  
  
"I mean, no. I mean, how many of humans and vampires and whatever else are about, when you line them up together?"  
  
"In numbers, humans are the largest. In influence, the smallest, though that's begun to change."  
  
"How come?" John asks.  
  
"John, I have enough to do right now without explaining" strange word "to you."  
  
"Right. Sorry."  
  
John sits down on the hanging bed to wait. Sherlock leans against the tiny spot of wall by the door. He stares at John in the dim light before looking abruptly away and opening the door. Light shines in. The humidity lingers.  
  
"We still have a few days to agree, then," John says.  
  
Sherlock looks at him sharply, but John doesn't specify. "We do," Sherlock replies after a pause.  
  
"You'll need to work around my position. I can't change." Not if he might be mind controlled into honesty. That's not a terrifying thought at all.  
  
"I know," Sherlock confirms.

"Maybe if we—"  
  
"Stop talking about it," Sherlock snaps.  
  
John falls quiet, retreats into his own head, and waits.  
  
They're allowed off the ship only after the other passengers disembark. John spends a short while waving to those he's spoken to, perhaps befriended, and everyone looks far less guarded before they realize Sherlock is also present. Finally, the captain and one of her officers come. She speaks to Sherlock in yet another language. Of course Sherlock's fluent. Like a bodyguard or a shadow, John is ignored.  
  
Leaving the ship without any luggage is disconcerting, but when Sherlock doesn't hesitate, neither does John. When Sherlock promptly stumbles once on solid land, John has another, less fortunate moment of following suit, but John does recover first. In fact, he can entirely blame his stumble on grabbing Sherlock.  
  
"Well done," John says in English. "We're off to a brilliant start."  
  
"I know what you say," Sherlock replies in kind, under his breath. He links arms with John, his left with John's right, and leans heavily.  
  
John doesn't complain. He has far too much city to stare at. Or town. It's a strange combination of the two, at once thick and sprawling, yet incredibly flat. The stone buildings lean toward each other over alleyways, none of them higher than three or four stories. Though he's the one propping Sherlock up, Sherlock is the one to guide them, following their escort of now three. John's not sure where the third man came from, but the point of his very muscular presence is clear. Sherlock and John follow without complaint. It's hardly as if any other option would benefit them, from what John understands.  
  
The buildings are the most obvious, here older, here patched, here engraved with impressive lines of an alphabet John's barely before glimpsed. The streets are uneven, though paved where they walk. The stinks of burning coal and fish fight for dominance, and then a breeze replaces them both with salt. Horses pull carts, oxen haul wagons, and John minds his step in the street. The general noise of the crowds about them sound familiar only until John tries to parse out the individual voices, the specific words, and his mind slips around what it knows and what it has been made to know.  
  
Clothing is different, thicker and darker. There are more patches, more stains, and no advertising at all. So many people, all bundled up against the cold, and not a single coat sports so much as a logo. No zippers, no velcro, and yet it still defies any sense of being sent back in time. This isn't history. This is life in full colour and full sound, absolutely complete.  
  
"John, you're staring."  
  
"It's another world," John says. "It actually is another world." He says it all the time, this world and that, but he never means it that way. He always means home, always means Earth, whichever world. This world is something else entirely. Different societies entirely, different countries, yes, but possibly, maybe, this is a different planet entirely. Somewhere else in the universe, instead of another when.  
  
Sherlock stoops, ducking his mouth to John's ear, and murmurs, "Welcome to the south."  
  
The divisions in the city grow clear as they reach the edge of the docks and the beginnings of the immense boulevards. They're escorted into a carriage, an actual carriage with horses pulling it and a driver riding up front. Two of their escort accompany them in and they sit across from each other without speaking. Sherlock affects a bored expression, but John quickly gives up the attempt to keep from gawking out the window.  
  
The buildings become finer as they go, bumping and rattling along. Fortunately for John's rear, the roads are also of better quality. Even so, he's nearing his limit by the time they arrive at a lovely prison of a guest house. There's an inner courtyard, complete with sheep nibbling down the grass. Rather than wonder at that, John follows the housekeeper at Sherlock's silent prompting. For some reason, she seems to assume John will be doing the talking between the two of them.  
  
Sherlock remains silent as they're shown to their rooms, large-ish and what might be considered somewhat luxurious. Compared to the ship, they certainly are. They're joined bedrooms and the door between them locks only from John's side. Much of the light is natural, coming through high windows containing some sort of thin, cloudy mineral rather than glass.  
  
John assures the housekeeper that the rooms are lovely when Sherlock wanders away into his own and closes the door. Though the gesture strikes John as rude, the housekeeper only relaxes. They arrange to have dinner sent up, and when John tentatively asks what Sherlock should do, the housekeeper responds with directions to the sheep pen. John thanks her and returns inside his own room to find Sherlock waiting in the open linking doorway.  
  
"Is there a reason I have to do the speaking? I'm not exactly good at it yet."  
  
Sherlock despairs of John's idiocy with one clear sigh. "Oh, no, because it's not as if I have glamour and she's a human with intact hearing. Would you think for once? I could get away with speaking with strangers when they thought I was human, but not now."  
  
"...Huh." John mulls it over and tries not to think about how suited Sherlock is to the archaic surroundings. It's his face as much as the clothing or mannerisms. Maybe that's why this doesn't feel as mad it as ought to. Or maybe it's simply John's life.  
  
"At any rate, you won't be expected to speak for me when we have our audience with the Lady. Until then, yes. Then, no."  
  
"And that will be?"  
  
"A few days," Sherlock answers. "Three, four, possibly the full week."  
  
And if John isn't back to "normal" by then, that's both of them possibly dead here. But three days is nearly two weeks and a full week would give him a month.  
  
"I'm going to take a nap before dinner," John says.  
  
"Off to visit one of your distant lands?"  
  
"Three of them," John says. "Well, two, but one of them twice."  
  
Sherlock simply arches an eyebrow.  
  
John rubs at his forehead. "Believe me when I say I know exactly how mental I sound."  
  
"As if that isn't worrying enough."  
  
John makes a rude gesture he learned on the ship and tromps over to the bed to pull off his boots. Very fortunate he's picked up the knack of falling asleep on command, or close to it. It takes him a few minutes, perhaps as many as twenty with Sherlock still watching him, but he sleeps.  
  
  
  
He wakes in Chelmsford and calms himself with routine. Modern equipment is jarring in a way it shouldn't be, but the struggle between life and death is as close to in control as it ever will be. It's a good change.  
  
He sleeps and wakes in Binary. Sherlock's gone missing again, which isn't a surprise. After a morning of rattling around the flat and worrying Mrs Hudson, John finally retreats into his bedroom and simply calls the bastard.  
  
It goes to voicemail. Of course.  
  
"I've three to seven days in Boat World before everything goes to hell. In a big way. We need to try something new."  
  
He hangs up and takes a walk.  
  
When he returns, Sherlock is home. Something smells absolutely terrible in the kitchen. It's nearly reassuring.  
  
Entering, John doesn't hold his nose, but he does come close to it.  
  
"Goes to hell how?" Sherlock asks without looking up from his microscope.  
  
"He and other me are wanted to treason," John says. "Unless other me comes back, our heads are coming off."  
  
Sherlock hums.  
  
"Any suggestions?" John prompts. "We could try the music therapy bit again, but it hasn't worked so far and I really don't—"  
  
"Just wait."  
  
"For what?" John demands. "What good could possibly come of waiting for them to chop our heads off?"  
  
If only to visibly roll his eyes, Sherlock straightens up. "You'll die over there, obviously. It might force you into another jump."  
  
John stares at him. "Or two men will die. Which I thought might concern you, what with one of them being you."  
  
"I'm me," Sherlock says flatly. "I'm fine."  
  
John takes a deep breath, which is a definitely mistake in the current atmosphere. Once the coughing fit subsides, he says, "It's not just beheading."  
  
That has the power to make Sherlock pause, but his voice is still level as he asks, "Torture?"  
  
"Sort of. If it's not beheading, it's this other bit. The hypnotism isn't just for foreign language class, Sherlock. It's for controlling people. To the point where vampire-you apparently isn't allowed to speak with strange humans because they're afraid he'll hypnotise them. They want to do that to me, Sherlock."  
  
Eyes wide, mouth slightly open, Sherlock visibly reaches for a response.  
  
John waits.  
  
"But it doesn't affect you between worlds," Sherlock begins, and that's when John starts shouting.  
  
"Yes it fucking does, you wanker! You arse, how do you not understand that it carries over? It's my mind, Sherlock, my fucking head, and that stays! That's for good! That is all I am anymore, do you understand that?" he shouts, and of course Sherlock doesn't understand that, because John is shouting in Franc.  
  
Sherlock may stop breathing.  
  
John breathes enough for the two of them, chest heaving, horrid stench forgotten. He coughs once, just a small cough, and says in deliberate English, "If that happens to me, that's the end. I don't know what kind of man would be waking up in this body, but... I don't want to know either. I wouldn't be surprised if I couldn't speak English."  
  
Sherlock nods, eyes distant, shoulders tense.  
  
"Any ideas? Anything?" John asks.  
  
"Give me time," Sherlock replies. "Stall. Stay awake here as long as you can and take naps there."  
  
"Already planning on that, yeah. Anything else?"  
  
For one instant, John thinks Sherlock is about to throw the table over, microscope and all. Instead, Sherlock simply shakes his head and rasps, "No."  
  
  
  
"You okay, mate?" Derek asks.  
  
"Fine."  
  
The news program plays on. John watches. His eyes remain on the screen, at least.  
  
"You sure?"  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
"Mmhm." The fridge door closes. The sofa cushion beside him compresses beneath Derek's large form. "Here."  
  
John takes the offered beer.  
  
Derek picks up the remote and switches to a match. He shouts at the players until John shouts along, until John stops wondering how in the world he's going to warn Derek before glamour drives him mad.  
  
  
  
He wakes to a knock on the door and has to quickly come to grips with lying on a bed that ought to be in a museum. He goes to the door and attempts to cope with the small cart with accompanying tray. Is that silver? It might be silver. If they’re getting silver, maybe John can also ask for a quick trip to a barber. His beard is well underway and his hair tickles his ears and nape.  
  
He stumbles through his manners until the butler—servant? waiter?—nods and departs. The man is obviously tense despite his poise and John realises the fellow had been staring at the door in John's bedroom. The door to Sherlock's bedroom is closed, a small relief, but the servant's behaviour only underscores that John is not at the top of the food chain in this house.  
  
John eats his dinner alone at the large desk in the room. It's fresh and therefore amazing. God, this must be what his grandmother meant about vegetables not tasting right anymore. It's a small moment of happiness, but he holds it with both hands.  
  
Once finished, he leaves the tray near the door—he should have asked for protocol—and then knocks on the door to Sherlock's room. When Sherlock doesn't respond, John wonders if the man simply isn't allowed to shout in here. Possible.  
  
He enters without permission to find Sherlock sitting at a bench set at the base of the windows. He's draped across the cushions, sprawling, his back against one of the bookshelves that frame the window. The book between his hands has a wooden cover and bits of rope visible where the binding frays. It's large enough that Sherlock has to hold it in his lap.  
  
John sits down at his feet, pushing Sherlock's boots to the side. Sherlock counters by planting his feet in John's lap. John secures them there. Best to hold on.  
  
"What does enthrallment entail?" John asks.  
  
Sherlock's eyes flick up from the book.  
  
John gazes back levelly. "I need to know."  
  
"Don't have time."  
  
"You're reading."  
  
"I'm reviewing law practices. As much as I can. I've sent a note for a number of other texts." Protectiveness shines in his face.  
  
John's not about to argue with that. "Has anyone invented the dictionary yet?" Too much of that sentence comes out in English. "Has anyone made a book that explains what strange words mean?"  
  
"Yes, but a dictionary will hardly do you any good."  
  
There: a new word learned. "Is your alphabet phonetic? The bits that make the words, do they mean different sounds?"  
  
Sherlock looks at him strangely now, and that is saying something. "Obviously."  
  
"Teach me that much and I'll do the rest."  
  
Sherlock groans. "There isn't  _time_."  
  
"There is," John argues. "Write out each letter and make the sound for me. I'll make a guide for myself. Maybe I won't be able to read quickly, but it won't just be you struggling alone." And, bastard that he is, he lets his hand on Sherlock's boot rise slightly higher on his calf, onto the material of his trousers. "If it doesn't work, I won't bother you over it again."  
  
"Fine." There's pen and ink on the desk and Sherlock draws out flowing letters with a practiced hands. No capital letters, John notes. Punctuation and sentence structure are going to be strange.  
  
Sherlock makes the sounds for him, glaring at the indignity of it, and John writes them down. The pen isn't at all what it should be, but that's hardly John's worst complaint.  
  
"There," Sherlock says. "Happy?"  
  
"Yes, actually. Thanks."  
  
John smiles and Sherlock smiles back, something helpless in the expression. Unwittingly pleased and so hopelessly young. The impulse is there in John's arms and it remains there until John consciously decides yes.  
  
He reaches and pulls, and Sherlock stumbles into the hug. Sherlock’s arms immediately close around John, hold tight enough that John might not be held accountable for breaking. Then again, he might, and so he doesn't. He simply lets Sherlock breathe him in while John does the same. The scent is different. Of course it is.  
  
He rubs Sherlock's back for a long moment before he pulls back. He clears his throat. "All right, then. Let's get to work."  
  
  
  
"Do you remember learning to read?" he asks Marta.  
  
"Good morning to you too. Hold these." She passes over the pair of coffees before pulling the door shut behind her, then slamming it shut the second time. "Cheers."  
  
"Right, yes, good morning."  
  
Before John begins to drive, there is the mandatory moment of coffee sipping.  
  
"What was that about learning to read?" Marta prompts.  
  
"Do you remember learning?"  
  
She thinks for a moment. "I remember flashcards. Why, something come up?"  
  
"Just a dream I had last night," John says, setting his coffee into the cup holder. "Very frustrating dream."  
  
  
  
"Have you thought of anything?" John asks the moment he's downstairs. He rolls his shoulder. Sleeping on the sofa upstairs has been rubbish for it.  
  
"Anything, yes." After a pause just long enough for John to get his hopes up, Sherlock adds, "Something helpful, no."  
  
John grumbles his way through making breakfast. Sherlock doesn't move, simply sits in his armchair and stares at John through the open kitchen doors.  
  
"Teach me more of that language," Sherlock orders abruptly.  
  
Halfway through breakfast, John ignores him.  
  
"If they break you, it's more pertinent than ever that we be able to communicate."  
  
"Sherlock, that? Is not helping."  
  
Sherlock stares at him. "Think of it as preventative medicine."  
  
"Yeah, no, not really a comparison. This is a bit more like setting up a funeral fund."  
  
"And? Writing a will is practical, not morbid."  
  
John stares back. "You want me to write a will?"  
  
"Of course not. His current one is perfectly adequate."  
  
"Anything else?" John asks. "Some sort of plan that doesn't count on me going mad?"  
  
"You live in four realities and  _don't_ think you've gone mad?"  
  
John nearly yells at him before he sees the smirk. Instead, he grabs the nearest paperback and chucks it at the smug git. "Not funny."  
  
"Domestic violence, John?" Sherlock asks pitifully. "Surely there are better— _oh_." His eyes go wide. "Oh." He points at John with both index fingers, palms still pressed. "Leider, any reason?"  
  
"The song mine tried to train me on?" John asks, not quite sure how to follow. "I don't think so. It wasn't any reason on my part. I just liked it." Even so, he's never been able to switch realities on command, even with the musical accompaniment. At this rate, John very much considers it a failed experiment.  
  
"So it isn't your associated sound for home?"  
  
"I... I guess it is? I don't know, I don't really have one."  
  
"I've had an idea," Sherlock says, tense and sharp in a way that might mean hope.  
  
"That was the general impression, yeah. What is it?"  
  
"It's your mind, but it's his brain," Sherlock says. "I have two... two pieces that might--They would be familiar. To him."  
  
Though standing well back, John gently eases farther away. "Do you want to play them later? Before bed."  
  
Looking at the floor, Sherlock nods.  
  
"That's something," John says.  
  
Sherlock doesn't reply, slipping away inside his own mind.  
  
"So do you want to learn the Boat World language or not?"  
  
Sherlock groans. "You have to stop calling it that."  
  
John grins. "I really don't."  
  
  
  
That night, Sherlock brings out his violin. He treats the instrument with a gentle, careful reverence that seizes John's heart.  _This will work_ , Sherlock's soft touch proclaims.  
  
It won't work, John knows. He should entertain the thought that it might—Sherlock's manner nearly convinces him—but it's much too far of a stretch.  
  
Sherlock ignores him, plucking strings and adjusting pegs. He seems more like a Star Trek researcher adjusting dials than he does a musician. Next is the rosin, scraped over the hairs.  
  
"Stand in the hallway," Sherlock instructs. "When I finish the first piece, sit down in the armchair. When I finish the second, fall asleep as quickly as you can."  
  
John nods.  
  
He steps into the hall and Sherlock begins, eyes closed, body tense, slowly lifting hair to string in an aching silence. The first harsh stroke shatters it. He slashes at air and stabs at sound, frustration in disjointed arpeggios and discordant key changes, anxiety in tremolo. He presses hard, driving the bow into the strings. His hand shifts higher on the neck, trilling higher into a controlled cacophony.  
  
Sherlock bends and sways, nearly stepping into the coffee table with his eyes closed. He avoids it, continues flawlessly. The bouncing motions of his bow give way to longer strokes, smooth yet pausing. The minor key cries out in mourning, in irreparable loss. Sherlock's hand shakes upon the neck as if to shake apart. He concludes with harsh, open string chords, vicious in defeat. He rips the last chord from the violin and slashes the bow down through empty air to point at the floor, the swish of it violent and sword-like.  
  
Breathing heavily, Sherlock points to the armchair with his bow.  
  
Heart pounding, John complies.  
  
The second song is infinitely worse. It's the victory to the earlier defeat, celebration rather than mourning. Sherlock sways with the phrases, leans enough that his steps are for balance, not style. This is a fierce supplication, a summoning, the sacrifice torn from beneath Sherlock's ribcage, through it. This is loving in the worst way, careless, heedless, flinging itself forward to the edge of any cliff, too trusting to believe in a fall. It is recklessly beautiful, a plea toward another man.  
  
Though playing with his eyes shut, Sherlock plays with his face open. His furrowed brow and pressed lips are volumes in themselves alone.  _This will work_ , everything in him cries.  _This has worked before and this will work again._  
  
John remembers the man he woke up next to days ago, weeks ago. Remembers the lazy curve of his body, the thoughtless warmth. Remembers the moment that man vanished.  
  
Here he is. Here he is again. Playing to John Watson, but not to John.  
  
The song finishes beautifully, magnificent in the rapid runs of Sherlock's fingers upon the strings. Multiple strings once again, but no longer open. Multiple notes, contortion required. The final notes shine.  
  
Slowly, Sherlock lowers the violin from his shoulder. He exhales, not looking at John. John's breath rushes out of him in the same moment, inexorably linked to Sherlock's lungs.  
  
Sherlock kneels at his case. He loosens the bow and sets it away. He removes the shoulder rest. He wipes the rosin from the strings and body before laying his violin into its resting place. John watches him, can't stop watching him.  
  
Sherlock closes the case and secures it. He doesn't move.  
  
Distantly, John remembers that he's meant to sleep. It seems impossible, completely so. But everything is impossible now.  
  
Breath still linked with Sherlock's, he closes his eyes and reaches toward slumber, that slow and uneasy slide.  
  
  
  
He startles awake in Digital London, his alarm beeping. His hand shakes as he resets it. Five more minutes. Just to check.  
  
His alarm goes off again before he can drop off a second time. Muttering under his breath, John readies himself for work and endures a truly agonizing shift at the clinic. The moment he returns home, he flings himself on the sofa and wills his mind blank, his body to quiet, everything to calm and slow.  
  
He wakes in a stuffy bed to the sound of knocking. For a moment, he considers simply closing his eyes again and making Sherlock deal with it, but there's a very real danger of their hosts thinking Sherlock's killed him in his sleep. He has an odd giggle over that, climbing out of bed and pulling his clothing back on. God, he'd like a change of clothing. At least the sheets were good enough for him to sleep in his underwear.  
  
He opens the door to accept breakfast. The servant situation is a bit weird. A maid comes in to do up the fire and grows visibly uncomfortable when he watches her do it. For all their sakes, he hopes he won't have to get used to this. In any case, he has breakfast much the same way he'd had dinner, sitting at the desk. He tries to get through a bit more of the reading while he’s there, but it's slow business, agonizing business.  
  
Breakfast eaten, he paces a bit, not wanting to try to sleep immediately after. Perhaps he shouldn't have eaten it all, but this body has very firm reactions to the thought of going without. Or wasting food, possibly. At any rate, the stress or anxiety the other Watson had toward food supplies here is ingrained into his body. Bit odd, but understandable. And hardly the strangest bodily detail: Chelmsford Watson had known how to dance. Dear God, that man could tango. That had been surprising to discover.  
  
When he exhausts the pacing, he knocks on Sherlock's door. "I'm coming in," he warns.  
  
He enters to find Sherlock exactly where he'd left him the night before, stuck at the desk and bent over books. Though unlit now, the candles on the desk are significantly shorter than they were last night.  
  
"Tell me you've slept."  
  
"I've slept," Sherlock replies.  
  
"Good," John says, hugging himself against the chill of the room. "Isn't there meant to be a fire in here or something?"  
  
"There was a knock at the door, but I didn't answer. Probably the maid." Another page turned.  
  
John retreats back to the door and opens it. Should help, if only a little. John should probably put his trousers and back on. He returns to Sherlock's desk instead. "Find anything?"  
  
Sherlock glares up at him. He sniffs pointedly and his eyes narrow.  
  
"What?" John asks.  
  
"The food's changing your scent already. I don't like it."  
  
"Don't worry," John says. "I'm in enough need of a bath that the rest should overpower that."  
  
Sherlock smirks slightly. "I wouldn't be so sure."  
  
It's the same smug amusement John had seen in Binary before throwing a book at that prat. It's the exact same look, right until it's not.  
  
"What's wrong?" Sherlock asks. "This is something new, something distressing you. What? What have they done?"  
  
"It's not—no." John shakes his head. "It's not here. Here is... the same."  
  
"Then?"  
  
"Somewhere else."  
  
"One of your dream places."  
  
"Binary London," John corrects. Where Sherlock Holmes is unquestionably in love with John Watson, with a man John may have overwritten and killed. Much the same as here, in that regard.  
  
Sherlock pushes his chair back from the desk. The slide of cloth-capped chair legs whispers upon the wooden floor. John looks down, and yes, cloth-capped.  
  
"You're upset," Sherlock says.  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
"You've had a nightmare."  
  
John shakes his head, unable to explain. Another version of his best friend, unrelentingly callous and vicious until one last desperate bid for the man he wanted in John's stead. It's not jealousy, can't be, but there's something. An ache. An utter dread of returning to that sitting room only to watch the hope shatter in Sherlock's eyes. For the shouting and yelling or, worse, simply blank despair.  
  
"You were asleep and now you're upset," Sherlock continues softly. His hand brushes over John's hip, holds there. The pull is gentle, slow. Warm. "But that's gone now. I'm still working out how to resolve this as matters currently stand, but I promise you, John, the only world you need worry about is this one."  
  
A second hand now, framing John's sides. "I know we don't have much time left, but there is some. Whatever anyone says or however they attempt to implicate me in unsavoury behaviour, you must know that my first and foremost goal is your continued safety." He guides John to stand between his legs. His gaze drifts lower, to John's scarred thigh. The longing in his eyes is one part hunger, two parts possessiveness, and more parts tenderness than John would prefer to say. "You must know that in many ways, I'm responsible for you."  
  
 _Let me take care of you_ , every inch of Sherlock begs him. _Give me something I can solve._  
  
John reaches across the small remaining distance, a sigh trapped in his chest, and Sherlock immediately presses his face against John's breastbone, breathing him in. It's too much. It's simply too much, Binary and now this.  
  
The sigh escapes as he pets Sherlock's curls. Sherlock jolts against him, frozen, and then his arms clamp tight about John's middle. John keeps stroking his hair, keeps standing strong and stable until he begins to feel the words actually apply. He's supporting, not supported. He can handle this.  
  
Sherlock groans, a low sound too close to a moan. John stops moving his hand then, merely rests it on the back of Sherlock's head. Sherlock nuzzles closer.  
  
John clears his throat and attempts to ease back. With Sherlock's arms clamped about him, retreat is impossible. All John manages is an awkward lean away that Sherlock pointedly ignores.  
  
"So, ah. How good are you with nightmares, then? I mean, what does a vampire recommend? Probably not a glass of hot milk," he jokes.  
  
Sherlock shakes his head against John's chest.  
  
"Didn't think so," John says.  
  
They hold still for a moment longer before Sherlock sighs and releases him. Releases him somewhat: Sherlock's hands immediately return to John's sides. "How bad is it?" Sherlock asks.  
  
"I don't want to go back," John says honestly.  
  
A flicker of indecision crosses Sherlock's face.  
  
"It's nothing terrible," John assures him. "It's just not right."  
  
Sherlock clearly disbelieves him, but that does little to take the indecision away. Instead, it only increases it.  
  
The answer, so terribly,  _stupidly_ obvious, promptly smacks John in the face.  
  
"Can you glamour away, away nightmares?" John asks. "Could you do that?"  
  
"John, if I'm found to have used glamour on you  _at all_ —"  
  
"But you already have," John interrupts. He grabs Sherlock by the shoulders. "You already have. You can't make it worse."  
  
Sherlock's eyes widen. "I can make it very much worse."  
  
"Legally, I mean. I mean... you could, couldn't you? Glamour away a specific dream? Recurring, just detail it and tell me not to dream it again, could you do that and make it work?"  
  
"I suppose I should be glad you're recognizing them as dreams now." Sherlock lets go of him entirely, pushing his chair back farther. He stands.  
  
John catches Sherlock by the arm, the chair between them. "Please."  
  
"You don't understand what you're asking."  
  
"I'm asking for your help," John answers. "I need this. I think I need  _exactly_ this, and I'm an idiot for not seeing it sooner." If anything is going to work, it's this. It has to be. The music was well and good—the music was amazing—but while that moved John's heart, it's his mind that needs moving.  
  
"You're asking me to reach inside your already addled mind and lay down barriers, John. To something you may need, to something I may not intend, to  _anything_. This would damage you. Possibly irreparably. Certainly beyond my skill to fix, and I'll not allow anyone else near you."  
  
"Just one dream," John says. "We're already dead either way, aren't we? One dream." Just for a start. Just to know if it will work. To make sure John won't wake in that armchair only to watch another Sherlock's heart shatter.  
  
Suspicion shines in Sherlock's face. "You want more than that."  
  
"Just this."  
  
"For now," Sherlock accuses.  
  
John nods. "For now. Why, don't you want normal John Watson, no strange worlds in his head?"  
  
Sherlock's resolve visibly wavers.  
  
"If it doesn't work, I won't ask again," John promises.  
  
Sherlock looks away. "I don't want to hurt you," he whispers.  
  
"I know," John says. "I trust you."  
  
Sherlock squeezes his eyes tight. His hands fist, pale knuckles impossibly white.  
  
"Please," John says.  
  
A bitten lip. A moment of hesitation. And then the curt nod.  
  
And then: "Fine."  
  
They spend the next hour working out the exact phrasing. The slow process threatens to destroy John’s remaining, severely limited patience, but Sherlock refuses to be hurried. Each word is explored for connotation, each sentence inspected for any unintended implications.  
  
John knows this is in his best interest. He knows that, and so he forces himself to wait, forces himself to be cooperative as Sherlock quizzes him time and time again on foreign words and any false connotation John may have imbued them with. Some of the words are English, putting the burden on Sherlock to understand. It feels like a spell more carefully crafted than any Harry Potter would ever encounter.  
  
Finally, Sherlock is satisfied. "I want you as a conscious participant for this process. It will work best that way."  
  
"Haven't I been already...?"  
  
Sherlock shakes his head. "This will be like Bart's, in the gatehouse."  
  
John looks at him blankly before shaking his head. "I don't..."  
  
Sherlock chews his lip. His teeth are remarkably unremarkable. "Possibly for the best," he murmurs. "We don't need to do this right away, of course. We've quite some time before nightfall—"  
  
"I was thinking of a nap."  
  
"John, you are literally shaking with excitement."  
  
About to argue, John catches himself in time. He takes a breath, lets it out. "I just want to sleep normally. For once. I just... Please. I'm exhausted and jumpy."  
  
Sherlock clearly knows there's more than John will say, but after a short staring contest, he huffs and stands. He takes John's hand, so tender and reverent that John feels like a violin. "This ought to calm you. Or panic you, should it end poorly."  
  
"Sounds about right."  
  
Sherlock draws him to his bed, slightly larger than John's and still unmade. Sherlock removes his boots. When Sherlock lies down, sliding under the rumpled blankets, John hesitates.  
  
"Come here," Sherlock bids him. "If you're going to drop off to sleep afterwards, this is the simplest solution."  
  
John climbs into the bed. They each lie on their sides facing each other.  
  
"I want you to listen for my glamour, John."  
  
John nods, unshaven cheek scratching against the pillow. All he hears is the sound of shifting cloth as Sherlock begins to unbutton his own shirt.  
  
"...What are you doing?"  
  
Sherlock shushes him. "Listen." He pulls John's hand to the exposed patch of his chest. The skin is already cooling with exposure to the air and then it begins to vibrate. Sherlock's chest begins to vibrate. It's lovely. Liquid peace flows over him, and John replaces his hand with his ear. Sherlock's arms settle around him, and John tries to burrow deeper, closer.  
  
And then it stops.  
  
The peace drains away, self-consciousness bubbling up. John tries to pull back, but Sherlock secures him. Sherlock pets his hair. And, all right, it's still rather nice. A muscle in John's arm begins to spasm, too long tensed and uncertain how to relax.  
  
The vibrating resumes, and this time John knows what to expect. Calm and relaxation, but not his own. He feels the need to press closer, the urge, and he can look at the compulsion rather than act on it. He considers it for a moment, and then the vibration grows. Contemplation is fine, but closer is better. John presses in.  
  
The vibration stops. John tenses. The cycle repeats. Each time, John grows more aware that there is something to resist, comes more aware that he could resist, that perhaps he could succeed in resistance. Each time, John doesn't care to try. Too lovely to fight.  
  
"Ready?" Sherlock asks softly during a pause in the vibration.  
  
John nods, the top of his head pushing against Sherlock's chin.  
  
Sherlock cradles John's head against his chest, holds him close as the vibration returns in full. " ** _This is my command to you. When you sleep, your mind will not wake in Binary London. When you sleep, your mind will not travel there. That world is behind a door, and the door is closed to you. Its memory remains, but your presence there is barred. No more will you wake in Binary London. This is the sole change I ask to your mind. This is my command to you. Do you obey?_** "  
  
John nods against him, into him. "Yes." This will work. This has worked. It's already done. He will not wake in Binary London.  
  
The thrum of glamour fades away, leaving him limp, pliant. He feels the soft press of lips to the top of his head, and then Sherlock begins to climb out the other side of the bed.  
  
John catches at him through his remaining contented haze. "Where...?"  
  
"Back to the books," Sherlock answers, gently peeling John's hand from his wrist.  
  
"Stay," John mumbles. Bring the thrumming back.  
  
A pause. Footsteps away, then returning. The mattress shifts. Stiff pages crackle.  
  
"Take your nap," Sherlock instructs, no compulsion in his voice.   
  
John tucks his face against Sherlock’s thigh and complies all the same.


	5. Blue

He wakes in Chelmsford before his alarm sounds, wakes and stretches. Seventeen more minutes until he has to get up. His bed is warm and safe in a way he seldom trusts beds to be. He yawns and snuffles into his pillow. He falls asleep.  
  
  
  
He wakes to the scrape of a key in the lock. Not to violin, not in an armchair. To a door opening, lying on a sofa. To the sound of heavy footsteps and the humming that means Derek is in a good mood.  
  
John sits up. He stares about his Grant Road sitting room. His right hand closes about his left wrist, recognizing the digital watch by feel. Not binary.  
  
Not Binary.  
  
He tries to go back to sleep. He truly does, but he simply starts giggling. He grabs the remote and turns the telly on as fast as he can, lest Derek think he's gone madder than he already is. He has a few moments to recover, Derek proceeding directly from front door to loo, but it's not much time.  
  
John’s going home. He needs to check, needs to make sure that Binary won't pop up on another cycle through his days, but the certainty of it overwhelms. He's never going back to Binary. He can't anymore.  
  
He doesn't know what will happen to the body there, to the John there, but maybe—he hopes—the other John will fill in the void he left there. The right one, somehow.  
  
Flopping onto his back, staring at the ceiling, he pictures it: Sherlock kneeling at his violin case in the sitting room, watching John sleep. Sherlock approaching, perhaps standing, perhaps walking on his knees. Tentative hands easing John awake with a non-triggering touch on the arms. The moment of confusion before the truth of the reunion becomes clear.  
  
Sherlock will think it his doing. He'll probably hold it relentlessly over John's head through the worst of their arguments. And John will call him an arse and forgive him, because that's how they work.  
  
A niggling worry: what if it's the wrong John?  
  
John wonders. He wonders until Derek wanders into the sitting room.  
  
John tells himself he'll never know, then sits up and makes room for Derek on the sofa.  
  
"Good day?" Derek asks.  
  
"Good day. You?"  
  
"All right. Nothing eventful."  
  
"Yeah," John says. "Me too."  
  
  
  
Settling down for bed is an agonizing affair, worse than any Christmas Eve as a child. Sherlock was right: John is shaking with excitement. He lies awake, sorting out what the next glamour should be, and that's how he finally falls asleep.  
  
  
  
He wakes cozy, his face mashed against something warm and solid. There's a hand on his side rubbing idle circles. A fire crackles in the room. Back in Boat World, then.  
  
He keeps his eyes closed and drifts back down.  
  
  
  
His alarm in Chelmsford goes off. John smacks the snooze button, rolls over, and goes back to sleep.  
  
  
  
His watch in Digital London beeps ten minutes before it needs to. He's off work today anyway. Again, he goes back to sleep.  
  
  
  
"Sherlock...?"  
  
The thumb tracing circles on John's side stops. "Hm?"  
  
"It worked." John pulls his face away from fabric, his face likely marked from the pressure. Judging by the twitch of a smile on Sherlock’s face, definitely marked.  
  
"For now," Sherlock allows. "We'll see if it lasts."  
  
"It worked," John repeats. He rolls onto his back and Sherlock's hand glides onto his chest. "Thank you."  
  
Sherlock very nearly preens, but a weight in his eyes prevents the full extent of his ego from shining through.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"You want me to do more," Sherlock says. "Obviously."  
  
"Well... yes. It worked, so. Yes."  
  
"I'd prefer to wait," Sherlock tells him. "There could be lasting effects from what I've done. There ought to be, in fact. The unintentional ones worry me."  
  
John wants to protest, but he would have been an idiot not to expect this. "How many days until you need a sane John Watson?"  
  
Sherlock sighs. "As soon as possible. Three at the most, if we're to go over any feasible plan."  
  
"Then why not try now?" John asks. "Just a question. You're worried. You're taking precautionary measures. Any other reason?"  
  
"Do I need any other reason?"  
  
John hesitates.  
  
"I don't care that you think me unreasonable," Sherlock says. "I'll remove the other two dreams tomorrow at the soonest."  
  
"Sorry?" John sits up.  
  
"Tomorrow at the soonest," Sherlock repeats.  
  
"No, the other part. What did you say?"  
  
Sherlock gives him an odd look, which at this point is more of his typical look. "I can still remove the other two dreams, but I don't—"  
  
"No," John interrupts. "Sorry, no, signals crossed. That's not, no. That's not what I want. That won't help."  
  
"The removal of one nightmare helped, but the removal of the other two won't?"  
  
"The nightmare that wasn't mine," John says. "The other two are mine. Those are mine. I'm keeping them."  
  
Sherlock's eyebrows go from arched to furrowed. "Then what do you want me to do?"  
  
John takes a breath before venturing in. "I think I've worked out a way for me to go home."  
  
"You... want to return north."  
  
"No, I—"  
  
"You'll have your head chopped off, have you forgotten that too?"  
  
"No!" John insists. "But that's not what I'm saying!"  
  
"You can't go home!" Sherlock shouts at him. He slams the book down on the bed cover. "I am sorry, I honestly am, but I cannot change it. If you go home, you will die. Do you understand that?"  
  
"I'm not talking about the north!"  
  
"Then what? You're certainly not 'going back' to some other world, John."  
  
The temptation to strangle rises up and John forces it down. "What the hell will it take to convince you?" John demands. "Anything I say, you already have some explanation."  
  
"Because I'm grounded in reality," Sherlock replies. "That makes it much easier to see. Simpler."  
  
"And you've never been wrong before? Hm?" He rises to his knees. "You've never been wrong about what's going on in my head before? Never? Not once?"  
  
Sherlock visibly pales. "Stop it."  
  
"You've no explanation for how this happened!" John shouts. "None! I do!"  
  
"Another vampire—"  
  
"Was there one?" John leans in, hands on Sherlock's knees. "Besides Moriarty, was there anyone at all who could have done this to your John, or does it have to be something else?"  
  
"There's, there's the possibility..."  
  
"Is there? Really."  
  
"You've been hurt," Sherlock says. "Moriarty's glamour was broken, but that doesn't mean it didn't leave damage. It could have taken some time for it to break you, but it is possible."  
  
John sits back with a glare. "And what about how systematic my story is? You said it was a sign of an active glamour interfering with my mind."  
  
That takes Sherlock a moment. "You always were an exceptional storyteller."  
  
Blogger, John doesn't correct. "Fine," he says instead. "Then I'm going to tell you a story."  
  
The look on Sherlock's face is the definition of emotional agony. "You can't persuade me, John."  
  
"And you can't persuade me, so it looks like we're stuck. In a few days, we'll go to court and I'll end up dead or insane. Or you could budge and maybe that won't happen."  
  
"Or you could leave me to my research and that won't happen," Sherlock counters.  
  
"Maybe I won’t die, but I'll still be like this." John leans forward. "This isn't going to change unless you do something. I know you can."  
  
Sherlock seizes him by the ears, hands cupping John's head. "You're still in there. You're not dead, you still know me, you are obviously present."  
  
John grabs his wrists, tugging Sherlock's hands down. He climbs off the bed and paces away, the chill of the floor seeping up through his socks. He crosses his arms, tucking his hands into his armpits. "Will you at least listen to my plan?" he asks.  
  
Sherlock glares at him, pulling the bed cover over his knees. "That depends on how moronic it is."  
  
"Call him back in Anglic and send me away in English."  
  
"There aren't multiple versions of you, John."  
  
"It's my mind," John counters. "My behaviour is based on what I think, not you."  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes. "Yes, right until I use my glamour on you."  
  
"If he's still present in me, the Anglic will work on him, won't it?" John demands. "If there's any connection at all. Because I don't understand a word of it. It can't work on me that way, can it? It has to be a language I understand. That's why we had to start slowly when you were teaching me Franc."  
  
"And supposing you understand both commands and the contradiction breaks your mind?" Sherlock counters. "You're an idiot."  
  
"By your logic, my mind’s broken already."  
  
"No," Sherlock says, voice taking on a rasp. "You're improving. You don't remember the damage before."  
  
"The damage caused by what? What Moriarty did?"  
  
Sherlock nods, clearly holding something back.  
  
"Was that like enthrallment?" John asks.  
  
Sherlock's face pales, but he doesn't disagree.  
  
"Then it's all about to come back. Or I die. Sherlock, this is the only logical option."  
  
"No. Because there is no logical option. I won't have you forcing the situation into a false dichotomy."  
  
Distantly, John realises his Franc vocabulary is larger than he'd noticed. "If there's no good choice, then why not the option I actually want?"  
  
Sherlock has no answer to that.  
  
"Are you going to let someone else reach around in my head?" John asks.  
  
"This is obvious manipulation," Sherlock mutters.  
  
"I could just kill myself and solve it that way," John says. "But I'm not."  
  
"Are you threatening to?"  
  
"I'm asking for your help."  
  
" ** _I forbid you from killing yourself._** "  
  
The order shakes its way into John's bones. It is sharp and staggering, and suddenly, the windows are impossible to leap from. The rails of the staircases will hold him back from any jump. "I wasn't planning on it!" John shouts. "Would you fucking listen!"  
  
"If you'd say something intelligent, yes."  
  
"What the hell was that for, then? You won't glamour me if I ask, if I fucking  _beg_ you, but the moment you think it's necessary—"  
  
"The moment you threaten to  _kill yourself_ —"  
  
"They're going to kill me anyway!" John shouts.  
  
Sherlock huddles on the bed, legs pulled up, arms wrapped around them. He glares at John over his knees.  
  
"What the hell are you afraid of?" John demands.  
  
"I won't hurt you."  
  
"Oh for—" John turns away to swear at the wall. "For  _fuck's sake_ , Sherlock!"  
  
"I won't," Sherlock repeats, eyes on his knees.  
  
A deep breath could never be deep enough to steady him, let alone calm him. "This is my life, dammit! All I want is control over my own fucking head!"  
  
Sherlock looks at him.  
  
John glares back, daring him, just daring him to disagree.  
  
"That's your plan?" Sherlock asks. "Shout and swear until I give in?"  
  
"That's pretty much it, yeah." He sits down on the edge of the desk, arms crossed.  
  
"You honestly think that will work?" Sherlock tilts his head slightly.  
  
"No," John admits. "But that's pretty much it."  
  
"Are you sure?" Sherlock asks, as if John's simply forgotten something. Whatever this is, it's not a game John wants to play.  
  
"I'm sure."  
  
Sherlock continues to watch him from the bed.  
  
John sighs. "Fine." He crosses through the open door into his bedroom and closes it. He nearly locks it, then decides otherwise. He sits in front of the fire until his nerves are less jangled, his eyelids more willing to fall. Then he lies down on the floor and buys himself a bit more time to think.  
  
  
  
He thinks in Chelmsford.  
  
He thinks in London.  
  
He wakes before the fireplace with an ache in his back. He relocates to bed and does a spot more of thinking from there.  
  
He thinks until he begins to pop back into this world each time he sleeps in one of the others, a sure sign that he's crossed the line from buying time to think and simply stalling.  
  
After that, he gets up and builds the fire back up a little. He looks to the joining door, still closed. Then, just to actually do something, he returns to his desk, pulls out his guide to Franc letters, and begins his struggle anew with the old fashioned pen.  
  
  
  
He takes his dinner in his room yet again. He wonders if this body would feel restless if it weren't for the recent boat voyage. This room is absurdly spacious in comparison, but being confined is still being confined. He's adjusted to the chamber pot but not to much more.  
  
As the sun begins to set, he lights his lamps. It feels too early, might be winter, but it's also possible his internal clock is confused beyond recovery due to his napping. He keeps working, revising, making absolutely certain that this is what he wants to have written.  
  
The knock at the joining door, when it comes, is more inevitable than startling.  
  
"Come in," John calls.  
  
Sherlock sullenly enters. "...My room is cold."  
  
John gestures to the chairs before the fire.  
  
Sherlock approaches, then stares at the rug. "Why were you sleeping on the floor?"  
  
"Because I wanted to," John answers. He blows on the drying ink, then stands. "Here. Will you read this?"  
  
Sherlock's smile is absolutely indulgent as John approaches. Sherlock takes the paper, his eyes skimming across its surface as John sits across from him.  
  
Sherlock frowns.  
  
John waits.  
  
"You... wrote this."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"The set of symbols are in a practiced hand," Sherlock says, brow furrowed.  
  
"Of course it's practiced. That's English writing," John says. "I did the best direct translation I could into Franc above it. And the bit below it, you'll have to translate that into Anglic yourself."  
  
Sherlock rereads the note several more times.  
  
"Would it work?" John asks. "As a glamour."  
  
Sherlock shushes him.  
  
John waits. He stands and builds the fire, prodding it with the poker a bit more than strictly necessary.  
  
Finally, Sherlock asks, "And if this still destroys you?"  
  
"Then I asked for it," John answers. "You've forbidden me from killing myself, but I'm still asking for this. What do you think that means?"  
  
"That you don't recognize the danger, obviously."  
  
John sits back down. "Have you considered what it means if I'm telling the truth?"  
  
"Of course you think you're telling the truth—"  
  
"If what I'm saying is real," John corrects.  
  
"Why should I have? It's blatantly absurd."  
  
"But if it is real, your John is in an entirely different world, completely alone and with no one to teach him the language. If it's real, then he's been like that for days, maybe weeks. He could be somewhere, anywhere, and you are ignoring the very real possibility that he needs your help to come home."  
  
Sherlock's eyes grow wide and round. They look like a child's, so surprised at something so obvious.  
  
"Maybe if you do this—" John touches the paper in Sherlock's hands "—maybe I'll think I'm him, maybe he'll come back. I don't know. So... please. Because I could go back to shouting and swearing, but I think I've frightened the staff enough for one enforced visit."  
  
Sherlock's mouth twists. "Can't this wait until tomorrow?"  
  
John nearly laughs. He nearly protests. Instead he says, "Only if you're not stalling for time."  
  
Sherlock looks down.  
  
So much for that.  
  
"Will you sort out the Anglic translation?" John asks. "This will only work if I don't know exactly what you're saying for that part."  
  
"I'll... consider it."  
  
John nods. "All right."  
  
  
  
The wait is agony. Too many naps during the day means John wakes in the night. The second time he wakes, he stays awake. He makes the mistake of opening the bed curtains and letting the cold in. Then he hears the noise from the next room, the pacing.  
  
Regretting the absence of his shoes, he gets up and eases open the joining door. Sherlock keeps pacing but waves a hand at him. John enters. He goes to the window where Sherlock actually has glass and gazes out over the courtyard, over the far roof, over the city. There's little light. The stars are amazing.  
  
"I think I have it," Sherlock says quietly, voice hard.  
  
John turns. "Do you?"  
  
Sherlock clearly hasn't slept. His pallor could be from the cold, could be from a lack of feeding. It could be from many things. "I think so."  
  
"Should I sit down?"  
  
Sherlock takes his hand. "You should come back to bed."  
  
John eases away.  
  
Sherlock keeps reaching. "If I'm going to risk you, I'm going to have this first."  
  
Slowly, John gives him back his hand.  
  
Sherlock draws him to the bed. He directs him under the covers. He climbs in after. He doesn't seek as much as a single kiss. Instead, he simply presses his cheek against John's chest and holds on, as if the world were ending.  
  
It's a slow and painful way to lie awake through the night. John rubs Sherlock’s back until Sherlock sleeps, until the fists in John's shirt are no longer self-conscious in their grip. From a great distance, morning approaches.  
  
  
  
They sit in the armchairs before John's fireplace, a position at once familiar and foreign.  
  
"Are you ready?" Sherlock asks, a question perhaps better aimed at himself.  
  
John simply nods, simply says, "Yes."  
  
Sherlock drags his chair forward until their knees knock together, until their thighs are tightly framed between the armchairs. "Close your eyes."  
  
John closes his eyes.  
  
"Picture your desired outcome."  
  
John's mind fumbles through overlapping images of 221B before settling on his analogue watch, on Sherlock's analogue watch lying on the bathroom counter beside it. That. Just that. John nods.  
  
The thrumming begins.  
  
Tension flees his body. He sags down into the seat, relaxed, comfortable. Sherlock is taking care of everything.  
  
The thrumming grows, and John leans in to meet it. A pair of hands catches his shoulders. One hand drops away, and the crinkle of stiff paper reaches John's ears.  
  
Sherlock begins slowly, his accent strange upon the English words. Their earlier practice has resulted in a smooth execution. " ** _This is my command to you. When you sleep, your mind will go forth from here. When you sleep, your mind will not return here. No more will you wake here. This world is behind a door, and the door is closed to you when next you leave. Its memory remains, but your presence here is barred. This body is for another. You are to return to your own body, to your own worlds. You will go home. These are the sole changes I ask to your mind. These are my commands to you. Do you obey?_** "  
  
John nods, and nods, and begins to giggle. He's going home. It's happening. He's going home.  
  
The thrumming rapidly fades. John blinks his eyes open to meet Sherlock's worried gaze.  
  
"You're laughing. Why are you laughing?"  
  
"I'm happy," John explains. "I'm fine." He doesn't make the mistake of telling Sherlock to keep going.  
  
"Not worried?" Sherlock's hand on his shoulder is absolutely tense.  
  
"Can I be worried under glamour?"  
  
"Not unless I tell you to be or you struggle."  
  
"Well, I'm not struggling, am I?" He tries a smile, a small one. "It feels nice." At the time. Disconcerting in the extreme in hindsight, but good during, at once relaxed and focused. His mind doesn't drift, doesn't strain. He vaguely wonders what it would be like to have sex like this. Like being selectively drunk.  
  
"Nice?" Sherlock repeats. He's offended enough that John laughs again.  
  
"Yes," John says. "Nice."  
  
Sherlock glares at him. "Close your eyes."  
  
Grinning a bit, John complies. He sits up straighter only to sag once the thrumming resumes.  
  
Long, gentle moments pass before Sherlock leans forward and murmurs to him, voice rolling and deep in unfamiliar words. The sounds are round and rolling, beautiful in the way they fill his mouth. John makes out what might be his own name, but only in passing. That recognition quickly fades. It's lovely foreign poetry, and though the meaning is lost to John, the beauty wholly remains.  
  
He feels a hand in his hair and a soft press of lips against his own. Quiet words turn to soft humming. John's body begins to droop. The air feels warm, the armchair comfortable. An untold time ago, John's hand had found Sherlock's knee, and the moment John realises this, dreamlike, it fades away.  
  
It all fades away.  
  
  
  
Groggy and oddly drugged, he struggles awake. His alarm begins to blare, announcing another Chelmsford day. It's all too easy to slap the snooze button and allow sleep to drag him back under.  
  
  
  
Somewhat less groggy, he wakes on white sheets striped with blue. He jolts upright immediately, staring about the room that isn't at all his. He gasps from the motion, an unexpected ache through his back and arms and a sting in his hands. He lifts his palms from the sheets to inspect the low blisters on his skin. Signs of recent physical labor, no sign of his watch beyond a tan line. He checks about his neck for his ID circles to no avail. Strange, when he has his scar back.  
  
He looks around the room again, the small room, ground floor with a window. There's a tree outside, sky lightening behind it as the sun rises. There's a cottage feel to the place.  
  
" _Fuck_."  
  
Lacking any other course of action, John resorts to his default: he goes back to sleep.  
  
  
  
"You all right?"  
  
"Mm." John keeps staring at the electric kettle. Maybe he'll wake up in Boat World, he tells himself yet again. Yes, he'd had so many naps there that he ought to still be snapping back there every time he goes to sleep, but maybe. Maybe.  
  
"You look a bit hungover," Derek says.  
  
"Just tired," John says.  
  
"Yeah, okay." Derek claps him on the shoulder, his good shoulder. "You sit down."  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
"Fuck you. Go sit." Derek makes small shooing motions.  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
"Go sit or I'll put your favourite mug on the top shelf. At the back of it."  
  
"I'm fine," John repeats, sitting down at their small table.  
  
Derek snorts. The kettle turns off with a click and Derek pours hot water into two mugs. "No you're not. Your hand's shaking again."  
  
"What?"  
  
A splash of milk into both, no sugar in either. Derek puts John's mug down in front of him. "When you keep saying you're fine, you're not fine. That goes double with the hand."  
  
John stares at him.  
  
Derek shrugs. "I notice things."  
  
The laugh bubbles up, desperate and trembling, and somehow John keeps it in his throat. "Right," he says instead. "Well. Thanks."  
  
Derek fixes breakfast with a shrug. John doesn't protest, much too busy trying not to vomit.  
  
  
  
He effectively collapses after work and wakes up in Chelmsford with no time left for stalling. He rushes through his morning routine, tries not to scare Marta on their morning ride to the hospital, and then he finds the surgeons' overnight room. He sets his alarm for ten minutes and desperately wills himself unconscious.  
  
The first attempt fails. Morning surgery stabilizes him, fortunately for both him and his patient. He succeeds over his lunch break instead.  
  
  
  
He wakes in the cottage. He takes stock.  
  
These are his sheets and his pyjamas. As he has the same pyjamas in Chelmsford that he has in his usual Londons, this counts for little. That his watch is nowhere to be found counts for a lot.  
  
Modern technology, though, that is good. He can't find his mobile even when he rummages through the abandoned pair of trousers on the floor. Also his. He swaps his pyjama bottoms for them. He finds a few of his shirts and jumpers in the closet. His shoes were under his trousers on the floor, socks inside. He touches his face for stubble and finds the usual morning amount.  
  
Dressed, John slowly ventures out of the small room. He enters a slightly larger kitchen, the walls an inoffensive yellow, the windows letting in ample light. By now, the sun has fully arisen, but his body insists it's still jaw-crackingly early. Perhaps this John had been sleeping poorly too.  
  
John finds what he wants on the kitchen table. He snatches his mobile up and immediately searches through his contacts.  
  
There. Oh God. There.  
  
Sherlock Holmes.  
  
Not dead here. In his contacts. Not dead.  
  
He sits down heavily, heart pounding, body shaking.  
  
Not dead.  
  
One here, and one in Digital London. That's... not what he wants, but certainly a better fate than the alternative.  
  
Once the shaking stops, he pockets his phone and continues into the sitting room. He immediately freezes. Slumped on the sofa is nearly the man he wants to see. On the coffee table before him sit a laptop and a camera, along with a fair number of cables and chargers. The laptop has long since followed Sherlock into sleep. John edges closer to tap the screen awake. He recognises a video file and can easily recognise himself in it. The landscape beyond the recorded John is unfamiliar.  
  
Sherlock snuffles in his sleep. Probably cold, the git. There's a fireplace in the room, well-used by the look of it, but the fire must have died last night. Looking at the pile of chopped wood in the corner, John suddenly knows what the blisters on his hands and the aches in his body are from.  
  
 _You arse_ , John mouths fondly.  
  
Then he goes into the kitchen and makes tea, because this is going to be a tea conversation. He tries to make toast as well, but has the odd surprise of finding only unsliced bread in the breadbox. Then he tries to find the knives and has to come to the conclusion that they've been padlocked into a cabinet under the counter.  
  
"...Right."  
  
Likely provoked by the sound of the boiling kettle and John's voice, Sherlock groans from the other room. The beep of electronics follows.  
  
John looks over his shoulder, no longer entirely certain he wants to turn his back. Then he tells himself not to be absurd—his door wasn't locked when he woke, no danger here—and simply pulls down the last clean mug from the shelf. He pulls another from the pile in the sink and sets about washing up.  
  
Footsteps behind him, the quiet sound of bare feet. They stop in the wide entryway.  
  
John drops a teabag in each mug and fetches the milk from the fridge. Surprisingly well stocked, actually. The sugar takes a bit of finding. He can feel Sherlock's stare on his back. John's unfamiliarity with the kitchen would be obvious to anyone, let alone Sherlock Holmes. By the time he finds the sugar, the tea's finished steeping.  
  
He finishes up, dropping the teabags into the bin under the sink. Leaving Sherlock's mug pointedly on the counter, John turns around.  
  
Standing in the entryway, Sherlock is recording him. He watches John through the handheld’s screen.  
  
John sips his tea, staring back.  
  
"Day twenty-three," Sherlock announces to the room at large.  
  
"Good morning to you, too."  
  
Sherlock doesn't blink. In an excruciatingly noticeable way, Sherlock doesn't blink.  
  
"Day twenty-three, slash day one," Sherlock corrects. "Subject two. English speaker."  
  
John stares at him a bit, then sips his tea. He picks up Sherlock's mug and hands it over.  
  
Sherlock takes it, shifting the camera into his right hand.  
  
"Where are we?" John asks.  
  
"Sussex," Sherlock replies.  
  
"Er. Why are we in Sussex?"  
  
"No longer relevant. If you can function as a doctor, we ought to return to London."  
  
"I... yes?"  
  
"Good," Sherlock says. "Pack your things."  
  
He turns away and John catches his shoulder. "No. Explanations first."  
  
Sherlock glares at him over his shoulder. "It's nearly an hour car ride."  
  
John pointedly takes two steps back and sits at the table with his tea.  
  
Sherlock keeps glaring.  
  
John keeps sitting.  
  
Sherlock groans and sits across from him. He sets the camera down, still aimed at John.  
  
"So, subject one didn't like London?" John asks. "Or knives, I'm guessing."  
  
"No, he liked knives."  
  
God. "That was my second guess."  
  
"Subject one didn't speak English," Sherlock explains. "Or understand electricity."  
  
John's stomach becomes at once light and heavy, unsure whether it can sink or soar.  
  
Sherlock notices immediately, eyes narrowing. He leans forward.  
  
"This might sound a bit odd," John says. "I mean, more than the usual. Did, um. Did he seem to think you were a vampire?"  
  
Again, Sherlock doesn't blink. "He was extremely confused when I ate or drank. Obviously, 'extremely confused' was his default condition. He also panicked when I showered and when I went outdoors in the rain. Overall, I'd categorize him as extremely traumatized and easily triggered. After the first major flashback, we agreed to lock the knives away."  
  
"Okay," John says.  
  
"Why are you asking about vampires?"  
  
"I'll explain that in the car. An hour, you said?"  
  
Sherlock checks his watch, stretching out his arm to pull the sleeve back. "Slightly longer, this time of day," he says, but John hardly hears him.  
  
"That's mine."  
  
Sherlock frowns. "What?"  
  
"You're wearing my watch," John says. "I looked for it when I woke up." He swallows, mouth dry despite his tea. "You're wearing my ID circles, too, aren't you?"  
  
"His," Sherlock snaps. "Not  _yours_."  
  
"No. Mine." He wraps both hands around his mug and asks, "Would you have any idea what I was talking about if I said that Marta thinks I need to quit caffeine and Derek thinks my PTSD is acting up?"  
  
His mouth frozen on the verge of some doubtlessly biting comment, Sherlock's eyes are very, very wide. Finally, he blinks.  
  
"Oh, thank fucking God," John gasps, shoving his chair back as he stands. The table is small and Sherlock's legs are trapped under it, but these obstacles are pathetic compared to the rest. They nearly fall on the floor and stagger into the counter instead.  
  
"Are you  _certain_?" Sherlock demands, gripping John's head between his hands. "Are you absolutely certain? How did we meet, what do you call our world, how long have you been gone?"  
  
"Mike, Analogue, too fucking long," John answers. He shoves forward into a kiss rough and desperate, Sherlock biting his lips in the attempt to talk through it.  
  
"What happened? Where did that man come from?" He pushes John back with that, not enough to shove him away, not remotely that. His hands seize John's jumper as if about to shake him. " _Where were you?_ "  
  
"We switched. We switched, I fixed it, come here."  
  
Sherlock accepts that for all of three seconds, three wonderful seconds. "How? I tried, we couldn't—" His words dissolve into frustrated groaning.  
  
"It's okay," John says. "I swear it's okay. I died in Afghanistan and—"  
  
"That's 'okay'?"  
  
"No, but—"  
  
" _Never die again_."  
  
"Okay," John says. "That's completely plausible, good course of action."  
  
"Shut up."  
  
Gladly. This snog lasts longer than the others. It stops when their shaking legs force them to sit or fall, but they mutually agree that they are simply that good at kissing and ignore the feeling that they're about to be ripped from one another at any moment.  
  
"How long can you function without sleep?" Sherlock asks. "It used to be forty hours. It must be longer than that by now."  
  
"I already slept," John says.  
  
"Good, because you're not doing it ever again."  
  
"No, I already slept. From here. Woke up, went back to sleep before I came out."  
  
"So you'll, you'll stay," Sherlock says. "Here. And Chelmsford and Other London. But here."  
  
"Probably not going to get shot anywhere else, so. Yeah. Here."  
  
That is obviously the wrong thing to say, but John ignores the ache in his back when Sherlock shoves him down onto the tile and climbs on top. If Sherlock's goal is to chasten him, he fails. The shaking starts up again and the chastising devolves into very forceful cuddling. Eventually, a bit winded and vaguely awkward, they sit back up. They lean against the cabinets, Sherlock slouching to keep his head under the counter top.  
  
"You died," Sherlock says.  
  
John nods.  
  
"You were shot."  
  
"Yeah. In the leg, actually."  
  
Sherlock's mouth twitches.  
  
"Come on, that is a bit funny," John says.  
  
Sherlock's mouth twitches a bit more.  
  
"Could I have my watch back?"  
  
"Mm... no."  
  
"Arse."  
  
"Mm."  
  
They look at each other.  
  
"What if this is simply a very similar version of you?" Sherlock asks. "If there can be multiple realities, some so varied that you speak an entirely different language, then there must be other versions of you living between those realities."  
  
"What if Analogue London split into other Londons after I left and this is the only one I'll ever get back to?" John counters.  
  
They look at each other a bit longer.  
  
After a long moment, Sherlock clears his throat and looks away. "Your tea's getting cold."  
  
"So's yours."  
  
"I don't care about mine."  
  
Shifting onto his knees and about to stand, John leans in and brushes a kiss over Sherlock’s mouth. "Yeah, but I do."  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes and permits John to tug him standing. "Fine. But then packing. I've been stuck out here for weeks. There's only so long former clients will remain grateful before they start charging rent. Tea, and we return to London immediately after."  
  
"Analogue London," John corrects, slipping his hand about Sherlock's wrist.  
  
Sherlock shifts his arm, twisting, and then they're holding hands the way they never do. Sherlock looks down at their feet as if frightened to speak, the way he never is.  
  
"Immediately sounds good, though," John says. "I've missed being home."  
  
Sherlock looks out the window and clears his throat. "Mrs Hudson missed you."  
  
John smiles a bit. "I bet she has. I've missed her too."  
  
"Be sure to tell her that," Sherlock mumbles.  
  
"Trust me," John says, leaning up to kiss the curve of his jaw. "You won't ever need to remind me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompted in spring of 2012, finished in the fall, and finally posted in the summer of 2013. Everyone give a big hand to threebooks3 for prompting it. 
> 
> For those of you wondering how this actually had a happy ending:
> 
> In the many splitting universes, everything happens. One universe gets to work out. This is that one. Everything else is terribly sad. Enjoy.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Infograph for 'No Fixed Point'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5972767) by [Shipping-by-Numbers (BronzedViolets)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BronzedViolets/pseuds/Shipping-by-Numbers), [superblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/superblue/pseuds/superblue)




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